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Plioio by 



Underwood & Underwood 



DR. WOODROW WILSON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 



America of the Americans 



By 

Henry C. Shelley 

Author of 

" Inns and Taverns of Old London." 

The British Museum : Its History and Treasures, 

"The Life and Letters of Edward Young," etc. 



NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
597-599 Eifth Avenue 
1915 



I&8 




CONTENTS 



CHAP. 
I. 


PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS 








PAGE 
1 


II. 


STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT 






. 27 


III. 


EDUCATION 








40 


IV. 


THE FOURTH ESTATE 








54 


V. 


LITERATURE . 








. 69 


VI. 


PLAYS AND PLAYERS 








. 99 


VII. 


MUSIC .... 








. 126 


VIII. 


THE FINE ARTS 








. 138 


IX. 


INVENTION AND SCIENCE 








. 160 


X. 


AMERICA AT WORK 








. 176 


XI. 


SOME TYPICAL CITIES 








. 194 


XII. 


SOCIAL PROBLEMS . 








. 217 


XIII. 


PLAY-TIME 








239 


XIV. 


DAYS AND SEASONS 

INDEX 








248 
263 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



DR. WOODROW WILSON, PRESIDENT . 

THE CAPITOL, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

IN THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C. . 

SENATE CHAMBER, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

THE STATE HOUSE, BOSTON 

ADOLPH S. OCHS 

" THE TIMES " BUILDING, NEW YORK 

WILLIAM D. HOWELLS AT HIS COUNTRY HOME 

EDITH WHARTON 

DAVID BELASCO 

E. H. SOTHERN. 

DAVID WARFIELD 

MINNIE MADDERN FISKE 

THE SHAW MEMORIAL, BOSTON 

TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON . 

UNION RAILWAY STATION, WASHINGTON, D.C 

T. A. EDISON OFF FOR HIS FIRST HOLIDAY. 

THE MARSHALL FIELD STORE, CHICAGO 

MARSHALL FIELD STORE, PANORAMIC VIEW OF 

FIRST FLOOR 
COTTON-PICKING SCENE, GEORGIA 
A COOLING ROOM, CHICAGO 
ORANGE GROVES IN CALIFORNIA 
BOOKING HALL OF UNION RAILWAY STATION 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 

EASTER PARADE, FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 
PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, WASHINGTON, D.C. 
THE OBSERVATION CAR ON AN AMERICAN TRAIN 
A BASEBALL CARTOON .... 

MEMORIAL HALL, STATE HOUSE, BOSTON 
A HOLIDAY HOTEL IN CALIFORNIA 
MAP 



Frontispiece 
facing p. 8 
,. 14 
„ 18 
„ 24 
„ 28 
56 



„ 72 

„ 78 

„ 112 

„ 118 

„ 120 

„ 122 

„ 152 

„ 156 

„ 158 

„ 164 

„ 178 

„ 180 

„ 184 

„ 188 

„ 190 

„ 192 

„ 204 

„ 206 

„ 210 

„ 244 

„ 256 

„ 258 

&nd of hook 



America of the Americans 



CHAPTER I 

PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS 



As an illustration of the hustling temperament of his 
compatriots, an American writer tells a story of a man who 
dashed into a Boston telegraph office and inquired how long 
it would take to send a telegram to San Francisco. " Twenty 
minutes," was the reply. " Thanks," he rejoined, " but I 
can't wait," and hurried from the office as quickly as he had 
entered. 

Many similar anecdotes are in circulation in the United 

States of x\merica, all of them typical of that impatience of 

Americans of which the love of novelty is 

Few Constants another phase. It would seem, indeed, as 
Life. though there were but two constants in 

American hfe — the Constitution and the 
Stars and Stripes, and even these are subject to change, the 
first by amendment and the second by an addition to its 
stars. Even the President of the great RepubHc is usually 
more interesting as an office-holder than as a man. " The 
next Presidential election," wrote Lowell more than fifty years 
ago, " looms always in advance, so that we seem never to 
have an actual Chief Magistrate, but a prospective one, 
looking to the chances of re-election, and minghng in all the 
dirty intrigues of provincial politics with an unhappy talent 
for making them dirtier." Modern Americans are beginning 
to assume Lowell's point of view ; they are so weary of the 
constant din of the presidential battle that they are demanding 
a national primary law and a six-year term for the successful 
candidate. 

One of the traditions of American pohtics is summed up 

1 
I— (2393A) 



2 America of the Americans 

in the familiar " mid-term danger " phrase, by which is 
impHed that no matter how successfully a new President 
may have carried himself during his first year of office the 
approach of the half-way period usually finds him in diffi- 
culties with his party or the country. " With us," said a 
candid American, " when a young man tries to chmb up, 
everybody cheers him, but when he gets to the top we arrest 
him, and proceed against him, and do ever57thing we can to 
keep him back." Much the same treatment is usually meted 
out to the Chief Magistrate ; his progress to the presidential 
chair may be acclaimed all along the line, but soon after he 
has reached the summit of his ambition the reaction sets in. 
Thanks to such biographies as From Log Cabin to White 
House, the uninformed imagination pictures the election of 
the President in a manner woefully divergent 
1>residrnt°^ from fact. It is true that the constitutional 
qualifications for that high office are exceed- 
ingly meagre ; all are eligible who have attained the age 
of thirty-five and are natural-born citizens ; there was 
profound truth as well as satire in Theodore Parker's assertion 
that " any one is in danger of becoming President " ; but the 
extra-constitutional quahfications are now so numerous that 
a man's progress from a log cabin to the White House is beset 
with a thousand obstacles. 

In the strict meaning of the phrase, there is no popular vote 
for the President of the United States. Out of a total popu- 
lation of about a hundred millions only some 
Presidents*^' fifteen millions enjoy merely an indirect 
participation in the choice of the Chief 
Executive, and many of the occupants of the presidential 
chair have been seated there by a minority of all the votes 
cast. These " minority Presidents " have included such 
rulers as Lincoln, Garfield, and Cleveland. The presidential 
electors who were responsible for Lincoln's success in 1860 
represented a popular vote of 1,866,352, as compared with the 
2,810,501 votes cast in favour of the other three candidates: 



President and Congress 3 

Garfield would have been defeated had all the votes given 
for his four opponents been recorded for any one of the 
quartet ; and on both occasions when Cleveland went to the 
White House his votes were a minority of the entire poll. 
Another remarkable feature of the presidential election system 
is that on several occasions men who were recognised leaders 
of the nation failed to achieve the position to which their 
gifts entitled them, for Henry Clay and Daniel Webster were 
respectively thrice and twice defeated in presidential contests. 
It was an American senator who declared that " the people 
have no more control over the selection of the man who is to 
be the President than the subjects of kings have over the 
birth of the child who is to be their ruler." 

But, wholly contrary to common opinion, the authors of 

the Constitution had no intention of giving the people any 

direct power in the choice of President. In 

Popular Vote f^^^ ^^lev did their best to remove that office 

not Intended. , -^ , • j .-, 

from a popular vote, convmced, apparently, 

that vox fopuli was not vox Dei. In its original form the 
Constitution provided that the legislatures of the various 
States should appoint a number of electors equal in total to 
their representatives in Congress, though no Senator or 
Representative or office-holder in the Government was to 
be included. This provision gives us the origin of the Electoral 
College, which still plays so conspicuous a role in each presi- 
dential contest. As, however, the extra-constitutional devices 
which have been evolved through the potency of party 
organisation have now all the force of original articles of the 
Constitution, the Electoral College is wholly insignificant 
compared with the primary elections and state and national 
conventions. 

A well-informed student of American pohtics has pointed 
out that the entire representative regime of 

Primary ^-^q country, both in federal and State affairs, 
Jilections. , , , ; , • ^ ,• i 

IS shaped by the pnmary elections ; hence 

the candidate for office, no matter how lowly or lofty his 



4 America of the Americans 

ambitions, must begin with the primaries. As, however, 
so many new laws relating to those primaries have been 
passed or are on their way to the statute-books of the various 
States, the reader will be less confused if his attention is 
directed to the composition and activities of the national 
conventions. Each party that has designs on the presidency, 
Repubhcan and Democratic, Prohibitionists and PopuHsts, 
Labour Sociahsts or National SociaHsts, has to select its 
candidate at a huge nomination convention, but as those 
gatherings have many features in common it will suffice to 
take a Republican assembly as an example. 

Owing to the four-year term to which President and Vice- 
President are alike restricted, the country is plunged into 

the turmoil of a national election every fourth 
^^Ele^tion"^^ year, the actual day of voting for the Electoral 

College being the first Tuesday after the first 
Monday in the month of November. But nearly a year prior 
to that date the political organisations bestir themselves in 
anticipation of the crucial day. The permanent committee 
of the party calls a preliminary meeting for the purpose of 
deciding the place and date of the national nomination 
convention. To fix the second is a simpler matter than deci- 
sion on the first. For as the national convention always 
attracts a huge army of visitors apart from the two thousand 
delegates, several of the great cities compete with each other 
for the glory and profit of playing the part of host. The fact 
that the candidates must possess or promise to build a huge 
hall for the convention, and also guarantee a large sum for 
expenses, does not seem any obstacle to a city ambitious for 
convention distinction. 

When place and date have been decided, the next stage is 
the appointment of delegates. Each State is allowed twice 

as many delegates as it has representatives in 
D*rirates" Congress, and these are elected in each 

commonwealth by State and district con- 
ventions respectively. To ensure the representation of each 



President and Congress 5 

State a reserve delegate is elected in addition to the one who 
is the first choice of his party. Consequently, as Congress 
has nearly five hundred members, the delegates and their 
substitutes are some two thousand strong. But as the 
nomination convention of a great party is always held in 
the summer, and as its sessions provide a series of dramatic 
episodes of a type singularly attractive to the mercurial 
American temperament, the two thousand who attend for 
business are reinforced by perhaps eight thousand more 
intent upon pleasure. Hence the popularity of Chicago as a 
convention city, for its immense Coliseum furnishes an 
adequate arena for such political gladitorial contests as are 
inseparable from a presidential nomination. 

Rarely does that function result in such speedy choice 

of a candidate as was the fortune of William H. Taft when 

he was nominated to succeed Theodore 

H "P^^ Roosevelt, for he obtained a huge majority 

in the first ballot and by the second vote 

was declared the unanimous choice of the Repubhcan party. 

It should be remembered, however, that Mr. Taft was the 

direct nominee of President Roosevelt, whose influence at that 

time was so paramount that selection of Mr. Taft was equal 

to his election. Under normal conditions there are many 

possible candidates, and it frequentty happens that a " dark 

horse " \\ans the prize in a startling manner. When James K. 

Polk received the nomination in 1844 the whole country 

asked " Who is Polk ? " 

As Americans take their pleasures strenuously, a national 

convention shows them at their best. For several weeks 

prior to the gathering the favoured city is in 

^Co^n^ntSJf^ ^ whirlwind of preparation, and hotel or 
other accommodation for the delegates and 
visitors is at a premium. The principal hotels are, of course, 
early reserved for the headquarters of the States' delegations, 
each building being suitably decorated by mammoth signs 
and a profusion of appropriate flags. The city as a whole 



6 America of the Americans 

takes on a festive air, for the main thoroughfares are liberally 
adorned with a bewildering variety of bunting, while as each 
delegation arrives processions with bands enliven the streets 
at all hours of the day. The visitors, who include enthusiastic 
partisans from the various States, add materially to the excite- 
ment and colour of the occasion, for they contribute a full 
quota to the resounding campaign cries and to the brave show 
of medals, ribbons and badges which distinguish the adherents 
of the various candidates. 

Under normal conditions the number of those candidates 
is as bewildering as the commotion. Many a State has its 

" favourite son " to nominate, even though 

How Candidates j^jg chances may touch the zero mark. But 

Nominated. ^^ ^^ the speculative element in a national 

convention which is its greatest charm with 
the majority of delegates and visitors alike. For it has often 
happened that a rank " outsider " has wrested the prize from 
the strongest favourite. This element of chance accounts 
for the " boom " which precedes the actual opening of the 
convention. Each delegation which has a " favourite son '' 
to nominate provides itself with a huge store of ammunition 
in the form of thousands of portraits of their candidate, 
pamphlets giving a glowing description of his life and triumphs, 
and myriads of buttons embellished with his portrait and 
name. These " springes to catch woodcocks " are scattered 
broadcast with a generous hand, especially during the 
clamorous and gorgeous processions by which the " boos- 
ters " endeavour to advertise the claims of their candidate. 
These spectacular tactics have sometimes won a surprising 
victory. For if, as happened in the case of General Harrison, 
the candidate has been described by one of those vivid phrases 
of which American journahsts have the secret, it is a simple 
matter to carry out an effective campaign. In an attempt 
to behttle Harrison's candidature a newspaper of the opposite 
party had said that if he were given " a log-cabin and hard 
cider " his ambitions would be satisfied. That satire gave 



President and Congress 7 

Harrison the victory. For the managers of his campaign 
at once described him as the " log-cabin and hard cider " 
candidate, contrasting his simple tastes with the luxurious 
predilections of his rival. The log-cabin dominated the elec- 
tion ; it figured on medals, it was utihsed as a design for gold 
and silver ornaments, and rough copies of that lowly type of 
dwelling were built all over the country. That Harrison 
became the occupant of the White House was due to that 
too-vivid phrase of a rival journahst. Hence it is not sur- 
prising that campaign managers are ever on the alert for such 
an advantage. 

Even if an " outside " candidate has little chance of reaching 
the winning-post, his supporters do not relax their efforts. 
They know that the more they emphasise their hero's merits 
the higher will be the price they can demand for their own 
vote when the struggle comes. But that final contest, of 
course, is reserved for the actual sessions of the convention 
itself. 

If, then, the reader wishes to gain some idea of a nominating 
convention he must imagine himself gazing upon the excited 
assembly which packs every corner of the Chicago Cohseum 
when the Republicans are gathered to make choice of their 
party candidate. The central portion of the floor of that vast 
auditorium is reserved for the delegates, each group being 
marshalled round the banner of its State. The side aisles 
and the galleries are dense with enthusiastic or curious 
onlookers. Ere the formal proceedings begin a powerful 
orchestra enlivens the interval with the strains of " Dixie " 
or other popular or patriotic airs. Of course, there is a pro- 
fusion of bunting, and round the galleries and from every 
pillar are hung huge portraits of the party heroes. 

Several sessions are occupied in routine business of a type 
hardly interesting to the casual spectator, for 

^onvention^ unless he has an intimate knowledge of pohti- 
cal devices he will not appreciate the inward- 
ness of the committees on credentials, permanent organisation. 



8 America of the Americans 

rules and order of business, and resolutions. Each delega- 
tion appoints one member to all these committees, the most 
important of which is that on resolutions, for that body 
is charged with the critical task of formulating the platform 
or policy on which the appeal to the country is to be made. 
A cyPxic might derive immense amusement from some of the 
items in the usual type of platform, for one " plank " may be 
in favour of civil service reform notwithstanding the fact 
that practically all the delegates detest any tampering with 
the spoils which they expect their candidate to distribute as 
the reward of their support. The supreme art in drafting a 
platform is to concoct a dish which will appeal to the largest 
number of appetites. Hence approval of Home Rule for 
Ireland or reprobation of anti-Semiticism in Russia are nothing 
more than adroit attempts to capture Irish and Russian- 
Jewish votes. There is so httle to distinguish present-day 
Republicans from Democrats that their platforms have many 
items in common ; the one feature in which they unfailingly 
differ is in their estimate of each others' merits. Thus, a 
Democratic platform will indict Mr. Roosevelt as " insincere," 
while a Repubhcan platform will eulogise his " unerring 
judgment " and " inspiring character." 

Although the reports of the various committees noted above 
sometimes lead to breezy scenes in the convention, in normal 
years it is not until the nominations begin 
Call ^^^^ ^^^ pent-up excitement of the vast assem- 

bly finds an adequate vent. When the 
roll of the States is called, an alphabetical order is adopted, 
thus giving Alabama the first opportunity to name its 
" favourite son " for presidential candidate. In 1904, how- 
ever, the chairman of the Alabama representatives, on being 
called upon, merely said, " The State of Alabama requests 
the privilege and distinguished honour of yielding its place 
upon the roll to the State of New York." In other words, 
Alabama was in favour of Mr. Roosevelt's nomination, and 
that fact gave his champions an earlier opportunity to 



./' -^Bi 



-►^^ 




President and Congress 9 

advocate his claims than if the State of New York had been 
obliged to wait its proper turn on the roll. 

So rarely, however, is there unanimity about a candidate, 
and even less rarely does one aspirant dominate the proceed- 
ings, that the spectators look forward to the 
^o"^t"^*^°" struggle for nomination as the climax of the 
convention. The speeches in favour of the 
candidates are usually an unalloyed deHght. Here is a brief 
sample : " There is a voice from the great valleys of the West ; 
from all her cities and cottages. There is a voice from the 
East, from the North, and the South ; there is a voice from 
the fields of the husbandman, from the workshop of the 
mechanic, from the primary assemblies of the people, from the 
conventions of neighbourhoods and States, calUng aloud for 
the elevation of this war-worn soldier, this tried and incor- 
ruptible patriot, this advocate of the destitute and down- 
trodden, this friend to freedom and man. Such, sir, is Richard 
M. Johnson.'' Of another candidate his orator exclaimed : 
" With him elected in the vigour of his hfe and plenitude of 
his powers, beloved at home and respected abroad, with our 
free institutions and our imperial domain, we should need no 
Bartholdi statue standing at the gateway of commerce with 
upHfted torch to typify the genius of liberty enlightening the 
world." In the majority of cases these grandiloquent appeals 
reserve the name of the candidate for the final words of the 
peroration. The reason for that apparent restraint is that 
each delegation has engaged and remunerated a strident - 
voiced claque, whose instructions direct that when the chosen 
name is uttered by the orator they shall make the hall resound 
with shouts in his favour. Nor do they confine their exer- 
tions to vocal approval. In a flash they all leap from their 
seats, waving flags or sticks or umbrellas or handkerchiefs, 
while here and there a more unconventional enthusiast will 
hoist his coat aloft or take off his boots and whirl them in the 
general melee. 

While the Democrats insist that their candidate shall poll 



10 America of the Americans 

a two-thirds majority of the convention, the Republicans 

are content with a bare majority, and often many polls have 

to be taken ere that majority is secured. It 

The " Break ' ' jg during the progress of those polls that 

"Stampede." ^^^ excitement reaches its highest pitch, 
especially when the " break " and " stampde " 
moments arrive. The " break " is that crisis when the sup- 
porters of unHkely candidates transfer their votes to a more 
promising aspirant, while the " stampede " occurs when the 
delegates become anxious to have a share in the nomination 
of the winner. Their anxiety is expHcable by reason of their 
desire to get " on the band wagon " of the successful candi- 
date, for if he should reach the White House they can hardly 
expect to participate in the " spoils " of a victory they did 
nothing to secure. When the final ballot has been announced 
and the nomination made unanimous, there is a scene of 
indescribable enthusiasm to which the orchestra contributes 
a vigorous rendering of " Hail to the Chief ! " Some astonish- 
ing " records " of cheering have been estabhshed by the rival 
conventions, for if one has sustained its applause for an hour 
by the clock the other has exceeded even that Hmit of vocal 
endurance. 

Another important matter decided at the convention is the 

election of what is known as the national committee, to the 

executive of which is entrusted the planning 

^C^ ^^'tt*"^^ ^^^ direction ol the presidential campaign. 
For although the convention can nominate 
a candidate for White House honours, it is powerless to confer 
them upon him. Each great party has its nominee for that 
distinction duly selected at its national convention, but in the 
last resort it is the fifteen million voters who have to decide 
between the rivals. For each party, then, the problem remains 
— How to conduct its ** favourite son " within the portals of 
the Executive Mansion. 

To solve that problem is the business of those politicians 
who organise the various national campaigns. It follows 



President and Congress 11 

that great circumspection has to be exercised in choosing 
the chief officials of the national committee, for the chairman 

and treasurer respectively must be masters of 
^y^P^^S^ poHtical strategy and finance. In view of the 

enormous area of the territory to be covered, 
perhaps the first essential factor of a successful presidential 
campaign is the possession of a well-filled exchequer, and in 
past contests the RepubHcans have usually raised a fighting 
fund greatly in excess of that of their chief rivals. On one 
occasion it reached the amazing figure of seven million dollars, 
while totals varying from three to one million dollars have 
been common. To raise such large sums obviously needs 
considerable genius, especially since it became illegal to demand 
" political contributions " from government employees ; but 
the treasurers have usually been equal to their task. This 
was notably the case with John Wanamaker, who, when the 
hurly-burly was over, disclosed some of the methods he had 
employed. As the Democratic candidate had declared 
himself in favour of Free Trade, Mr. Wanamaker utilised that 
profession as an overwhelming argument with wealthy 
business men. Such captains of commerce were naturally 
wedded to Protection and when the Republican treasurer 
asked them how much they were prepared to pay for an 
insurance of their business, they promptly subscribed 
in large sums. Now, however, that corporations are 
forbidden to subscribe to campaign funds in national elec- 
tions it will not be so easy for future treasurers to fill the 
war-chest. 

Yet the need for liberal expenditure remains, and will 
remain until the spoils system is destroyed. There are the 

voters to be captured if the party's nominee 
Capturing is to have it in his power to reward his 
the Voter. supporters* services by remunerative ofiices. 

Headquarters have to be maintained, a vast 
mass of publicity hterature has to be written and printed 
and distributed, newspapers have to be captured, campaign 



12 America of the Americans 

speakers and processions have to be subsidised, and there must 
be a large reserve to purchase such votes as can be influenced 
by nothing less substantial than a monetary argument. 

By far the most strenuous efforts of the campaign are 
directed against what are known as " the pivotal States." 
A concrete example will illustrate this point. For a presi- 
dential election the State of New York is entitled to return 
thirty-seven members to the Electoral College, and the party 
which wins the State by the smallest majority gets that 
entire vote. The capture of New York by the Democrats in 
1884 elected Mr. Cleveland to the presidency, 3ret they only 
secured a little more than a thousand votes in excess of the 
Republican poll. The lesson was not lost upon their rivals, 
for at the next election superhuman efforts were made to 
carry New York in the Republican interest, with the result 
that the Democrats were defeated. Hence it is easy to 
understand why the " pivotal States " are the arena of the 
fiercest fighting. 

What the American calls " Chinese business," that is, 
spectacular demonstrations, processions, firework displays, 
etc., is most in evidence in the doubtful States. 
" Chinese^ gjg ralUes, picnics, bands, flags, party 
emblems with the candidate's portrait, bets 
and straw votes, incessant canvassing, and sometimes indirect 
intimidation, are among the devices employed by the cam- 
paign managers. As the art of personal pubHcity has been 
wrought to a high pitch in the United States, it follows that 
much of the literature so widely distributed is concerned with 
the candidate's life. Hawthorne, it wiU. be remembered, 
wrote the " campaign biography " of Frankhn Pierce, while 
that of Lincoln was the work of William D. Ho wells. Apart 
from lending himself to this personal inquisition, the candidate 
is now expected to stump the country in his own behalf. When 
he received his first nomination in 1896, Mr. Bryan traversed 
the countr}^ in a private car from whence he made some four 
hundred impassioned orations, but that record was exceeded 



President and Congress 13 

by Mr. Taft in 1908 with 436 speeches dehvered over a journey 
of more than 18,000 miles. 

All the foregoing details of a presidential election are 
unknown to the Constitution ; they are indeed extra-con- 
stitutional, yet have become part of the 
^^Co^leT'^^^ pohtical machinery of the land. At the 
eleventh hour, however, the Constitution 
asserts itself once more, for the end of the commotion finds the 
voters called upon to indicate their choice, not of the President, 
but of the electors who have to decide between the candidates. 
In each State the various parties agree upon a hst of candidates 
for the Electoral College equal in number to the State repre- 
sentation in Congress, and it is upon these various hsts that 
the voter exercises his choice. Hence it is the party which 
wins a sufficient number of States to secure a bare majority 
in the Electoral College which seats its candidate in the White 
House, irrespective of whether he has secured a majority of 
the popular vote. As soon as the November election is 
concluded the country knows who is to be the next President, 
even though the Electoral College does not meet until the 
following January and Congress does not take official cogni- 
sance of the result until February. Save when the issue 
depends upon a few contested votes, the proceedings of the 
Electoral College and Congress are nothing more than a 
pretence. If a candidate has secured an undoubted majority 
of the Electors he becomes President-elect as soon as the 
November poll is closed. 

Yet neither then nor at any subsequent period does he 
receive any official intimation of his election ; the Constitu- 
tion takes it for granted that he will not be 
^"^"Pttf^^°" ignorant of his good fortune and that he will 
President. present himself at Washington on the 4th 
of March to be sworn in to his high office. 
The inauguration ceremony is conducted with democratic 
simplicity, the retiring President and the President-elect 
being driven together to the portico of the stately Capitol. 



14 America of the Americans 

where the Chief Justice, in the presence of a vast multitude, 
administers this oath to the new Chief Executive : " I do 
solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of Pre- 
sident of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, 
preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United 
States." Then follows the inaugrural address, after which the 
President drives back to the White House to re\iew an impos- 
ing procession of soldiers, sailors, and pohtical organisations. 
Usually, the day's proceedings conclude ^\-ith a mammoth 
inaugural ball, but President Woodrow Wilson's refusal to 
attend such a function, mainly, it is thought, because he 
declined to be exhibited at so much a head, has estabhshed 
a precedent which other Presidents may be glad to 
follow. 

In the opinion of Dickens, the President's mansion was 
" like an Enghsh club-house, both within and without." 

But that description was \mtten more than 
House ^^ seventy years ago ; the White House of to-day 

is a different building in many respects from 
that \'isited by the novehst. The name by which it is best 
known owes its origin to the devastation of British troops in 
1S14. for the President's home was included among the build- 
ings given to the flames when General Ross occupied Washing- 
ton. On the structure being repaired it was found that the 
walls were so disligured by smoke that it was decided to give 
them a thick coat of white paint, and from that circumstance 
the mansion, of which the official title is the Executive Man- 
sion, became known as the White House. The site was 
selected by Washington, who also laid the comer stone in 
1792. and walked through its nearly completed rooms a few 
days before his death. First occupied by John Adams in 
ISOO. it has imdergone two transfonnations : first, after the 
war oi 1S14. and again in 1902-3. when many alterations and 
additions were carried out. Even to-day it is not a pretentious 
building as Washington homes go ; many a private citizen 
is housed in a finer example of the architect's art ; but in its 



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■"■iliWllJiilliilllliliPWi 



I'Hi: wiiiri iioisi:. \va>iiin(, rnx, n.c. 



President and Congress 15 

stately simplicity it is a worthy official home for the first 
citizen of a great democracy. 

No ruler's palace is so accessible to visitors as the White 
House, for, while those having direct business with the 
President are restricted to an hour on five days of the week, 
the East Room of the mansion is open to all comers every day 
from ten till two o'clock. The chief apartments, in addition 
to the East Room, which is really the State parlour and is 
used for formal receptions, include the Blue Room, specially 
reserved for the President's receptions, the Green and Red 
Rooms, each decorated in the colour after which they are 
named, and the State Dining-room, which is richly panelled 
in English oak. The President's office and the cabinet room 
are situated in the annex reserved for the executive as dis- 
tinguished from the domestic side of the President's life. 
Besides being decorated in an artistic manner, the principal 
apartments contain many valuable works of art, including 
portraits of presidents, massive crystal chandehers, exquisite 
services of china, gold clocks, bronze vases, and handsome 
cabinets. 

Of course, the occupant of the White House has no financial 
liabihty for the adornment or upkeep of the mansion. The 
building and its works of art are the possession 
^lillry!'^ of the nation, lent for four years to that 
nation's choice. Hence the upkeep of the 
building, with numerous incidental expenses, such as the 
care of the grounds, the stable charges, lighting, etc., are 
defrayed from the national exchequer. Nominally the 
President's salary is $75,000 a year (£15,000), but when his 
travelhng allowance of $25,000 (£5,000) is added plus the 
various items relating to the maintenance of the White House, 
the total appropriation bill represents more than $300,000 
(£60,000). As salaries of important positions go in the United 
States, however, the financial prize of the presidential office 
is exceedingly meagre. But the occupant of that office has 
many privileges : he may, it is true, be impeached but, 



16 America of the Americans 

pending the verdict, his hberty is absolutely unrestrained, 

and no tribunal of the land can order his arrest for any crime. 

In his official position the first duty of a new President 

is to select the members of his Cabinet, that is, the heads 

of the various permanent departments ; but 
^PatronLe"^ custom and his position as the dispenser of 

enormous federal patronage have saddled him 
with a task compared with which the formation of a Cabinet 
is recreation. He is the fountain-head of federal spoils. In 
other words, and notwithstanding reforms of recent years, 
the President has in his absolute gift a vast number of appoint- 
ments representing an annual value of $ 12,000,000 (£2,400,000) . 
President Jackson is usually credited with the introduction 
of the spoils system ; whatever the extent of his guilt, he 
dispossessed hundreds of postmasters, revenue collectors, and 
other office-holders of their posts, and gave them to members 
of his own party. Hence, for many generations, the election 
of a new president has involved a hberal use of the ' ' guillotine 
of the party," one of the most distinguished victims of that 
decapitation being Nathaniel Hawthorne, though, as his 
dismissal from the Salem custom-house set him free to write 
The Scarlet Letter, his case might be cited as an example of the 
beneficent working of the system. 

Since the murder of President Garfield by a disappointed 
office-seeker, the amount of patronage in the Chief Executive's 

gift has shown a tendency to diminish. The 
'service^^ classified, or civil, service of the federal 

government gives employment to some 
350,000 persons, of whom at the present time some 200,000 
are appointed on examination, the balance receiving their 
posts on the spoils system. The president has practically 
unlimited power as to what offices shall be included in the 
classified service, and Grover Cleveland and Theodore Roose- 
velt made a generous use of that authority. The agitation 
for further reform is still being carried on, but while it would 
purify presidential conflicts of a vast amount of corruption 



President and Congress 17 

if the spoils system were entirely abolished it may be doubted 
whether such a consummation will ever be achieved. If it 
were, it would revolutionise the political machinery of the 
entire nation. Of course, the President cannot possibly 
give his personal attention to all the claimants for office ; the 
members of his party in Congress provide him with ample 
suggestions on which to act. Hence the dilemma of Lincoln. 
A supporter had obtained a postmastership for a friend, and 
then, having taken offence against his nominee, demanded 
his removal. " I don't want to turn him out," Lincoln said, 
" but I must — there's no help for it." 

According to the Constitution, the President is to act " with 
the advice and consent of the Senate " in making appoint- 
ments to the most important offices, such as 

Aowlintments i^^§^^' ambassadors, members of the Cabinet, 
etc., but in the majority of cases the consent 
of the Senate is a mere formality, for that house usually accepts 
and endorses the President's nominations. It is true that 
Senators expect to have the deciding voice in important 
appointments in their several States, though on one occasion 
senatorial nominations were overruled by the Chief Executive, 
and when the offended senators resigned the electors decided 
against them. As his power of appointment is so large it has 
been decided that his authority to remove is equally great, he 
being at Hberty to dismiss any officer he has appointed without 
even assigning his reason for doing so. 

Other powers inherent in the presidential ofi&ce relate to 

the control of the mihtary and naval forces of the nation, 

of which he is the commander-in-chief in 

^^?re!idJnt^^ peace and war. The right to declare war is 
reserved to Congress, but the President may 
so dispose of the armed forces as to make such a declaration 
inevitable. In the realm of foreign politics he must secure 
the consent of two-thirds of the Senate to his treaties, but 
neither house of Congress can prevent him dismissing ambassa- 
dors, or refusing to recognise a new State, either of which 

2— (2393A) 



18 America of the Americans 

might involve the country in armed conflict. In fact, save in 
one particular, the President of the United States exercises 
a plenitude of power far in excess of that of a constitutional 
monarch. 

But his authority over legislation is practically restricted 
to the veto. He is an executor, not a legislator. If, as 
may often be the case, the party of which 
The Veto. he is the head, does not command a majority 
in the House and Senate, his success in obtain- 
ing laws embodying his policies depends not upon his official 
position, but upon the force of his personal character, and 
his abihty to manage men. By the terms of the Constitution, 
he is expected to inform Congress from time to time of the 
state of the country, and to recommend " such measures as 
he shall judge necessary and expedient " ; but whether those 
measures become law rests with Congress. The veto, however, 
enables him to thwart legislation of which he disapproves, 
for a bill to which he has refused to sign his name must be 
passed again by a two-thirds majority of both houses to 
become law over the presidential veto. This power is of 
negative as well as positive value, for a threat to exercise it 
has been potent to secure the passing of measures specially 
favoured by the President. 

Reference has been made to the Cabinet, but to prevent 
misunderstanding it should be added that the Cabinet of the 
United States government differs considerably 
Cabiiiet ^^^^ ^^^ Cabinet of countries where parlia- 
mentary government prevails. It consists, 
of course, of the heads of the chief executive departments, 
who, however, are described as secretaries and not as ministers. 
They are ten in number, the salary of each being $12,000 
(£2,400). As these salaries are exceedingly meagre when 
judged by the American standard, it might appear singular 
that competent men are never lacking for the various depart- 
ments, until it is remembered that a Secretary has a consider- 
able appointing power, a factor of prime importance in 




Photo bv 



IN THE WHITE HOUSE 



U nderu'ood & Underwood 
WASHINGTON, D.C. 



President and Congress 19 

American politics. A singular fact in connection with 
members of the Cabinet is that custom rather than the 
Constitution, which is salient on that matter, stipulates that 
they shall not be members of Congress or have the right 
to speak there. Consequently they are not directly respon- 
sible for the introduction or control of legislation, though 
they may draft bills and get them laid before Congress. The 
members of the Cabinet, in short, are responsible to the 
President, by whom they are treated in the main as a con- 
sultative and advisory body. It has happened, however, 
that other groups of men have been in closer touch with the 
head of the nation than his regular secretaries, for the " Kitchen 
Cabinet " of President Jackson, so called because they had 
admission to the White House through the kitchen, and the 
" Tennis Cabinet " of President Roosevelt, the members of 
which were wont to join him in his favourite game, are beheved 
to have had more influence with the Chief Executive than his 
official advisers. 

It follows from the foregoing that a " Cabinet crisis " is as 
impossible in the United States as a resignation of the Govern- 
ment. The President, save for successful 
^^^C^lnet^"^ impeachment, is immovable by Congress or 
any other body ; much more is he wholly 
independent of his Cabinet. A Lincoln story tersely illus- 
trates this point. In closing a discussion with his heads of 
departments, in which all were against him, he ejaculated : 
" Seven nays, one aye, the ayes have it." Yet President and 
Cabinet meet in regular session to discuss the general pohcy 
of the administration, for naturally the members of the 
Cabinet belong to the Chief Executive's own party, though 
Washington did try the experiment of a coaHtion ministry. 
Although the President nominally has a free hand in the 
choice of the various secretaries, his nominations are largely 
influenced by election campaign promises and also by the 
tradition which expects him to placate his most formidable 
rival in the nominating convention by making him Secretary 



20 America of the Americans 

of State. The latter tradition accounts for William J. 
Bryan's position in the Woodrow Wilson administration. 

As a rule, members of Congress are disinchned to resign their 

positions for a secretaryship, for most men would prefer to be 

a Senator for six years rather than a secretary 

Ex-Presidents, for four. Owing to the four-year term of 
the President, there is little continuity in 
administration life ; for example, it is the exception rather 
than the rule for a given secretary to serve for two presidential 
terms. There is more stabiHty in a senatorial career, for 
members of the Upper House are more frequently re-elected 
than those of the House of Representatives, some Senators 
having seen upwards of thirty years' service. In the main, 
however, the leading figures of the administration come and 
go with startling rapidity. Even a man who has been Pre- 
sident quickly sinks into oblivion once he leaves the White 
House. As if in mitigation of this reversal of fortune, it is 
a singular fact that few Presidents long survive their tenure 
of office. For example, of the nine men who have filled that 
office during the last fifty years only two are now Uving, 
namely, Theodore Roosevelt and William H. Taft. The 
latter has dropped below the horizon into the comparative 
obscurity of a university professorship ; the former is a 
marked exception for the manner in which he holds public 
attention as an ex- President. The Americans, indeed, are often 
so perplexed to know what to do with their ex-Presidents, 
that the suggestion was once made that it might be charitable 
to shoot them unless the country saw fit to pension them off 
at $100,000 a year ! 

Apart from " party bosses," and notably the chief of 
Tammany Hall, the more stable leaders of American politics 
must be sought in Congress, and especially 
Congress. in the Senate. In its earliest form Congress 
was a single-chamber body, but when the 
failure of the Confederation necessitated a new form of govern- 
ment the bicameral advocates were victorious. Jefferson 



President and Congress 21 

and Washington were at odds on that point, but one day 
when the two were discussing the question and the former 
had urged many objections against a two-chamber parHament, 
Washington said, " You, yourself, have proved the excellence 
of two houses this very moment." " I ? " rejoined Jefferson ; 
" how is that, General ? " " Why," answered Washington, 
" you have turned your hot tea from the cup into the saucer 
to get cool. It is the same thing we desire of the two houses." 
That homely parable looks like an anticipation of modern 
criticism of the Senate to the effect that it is " all brakes and 
no steam." 

Although there is widespread discontent with the method 

by which Senators are elected, and with the manner in which 

the Upper House exercises its cooling powers. 

Qualifications ^j^g bicameral system of government is an 

Congressmen, essential part of the Constitution. Congress, 
then, consists of two Houses, a Senate which 
is regarded as representative of the States as such, and a 
House of Representatives for the more popularly-elected 
congressmen. The qualifications of Senators and Repre- 
sentatives and their respective terms of office are rigidly 
defined by the Constitution : a Senator, who is elected for 
six years, must have attained his thirtieth year, have been 
a citizen of the United States for nine years, and be a resident 
of the State he aspires to represent ; a Representative, whose 
term of office is limited to two years, is required to be a citizen 
of seven years' standing, to be at least twenty-five years of 
age, and to reside in the State in which he is elected. 

Naturally, there is a marked difference in the method by 

which the two chambers are recruited. The number of 

Representatives allowed to a given State is 

Representation adjusted by Congress, with the sole proviso 
Population. that it shall never be more than one for 
every 30,000 of population, irrespective of 
the number of voters. As a matter of fact, the average popu- 
lation of a congressional district is now some 200,000, while 



22 America of the Americans 

there are some startling anomalies of the type which afford 
cogent arguments for the advocates of proportional represen- 
tation. Of two districts in New York, for example, one 
contains a population more than twice as numerous as the 
other. Many of these discrepancies are due to the fact that 
the various States have sole control of the demarkation of 
congressional constituencies. In other words, the party 
which has a majority can so carve up a State territory as to 
get the greatest value from its own vote while reducing that 
of its opponent to zero. This practice has added to American 
vocabulary such vivid phrases as " gerrymandering " and 
" shoe-string district," etc. While the boundary hnes of the 
States are in the main as regular as a ruler can make them, 
the shapes of congressional constituencies are fantastically 
amorphous. That is, they illustrate the principle of " gerry- 
mandering." The legend goes that a politician named Gerry 
was the chief cause of the manipulation of his State in such 
a manner that one of the districts bore a marked resemblance 
to a hzard. This so appealed to an artist that he exclaimed, 
" Why, this district looks hke a salamander," to which an 
onlooker retorted, " Say rather a gerrymander." In another, 
a constituency had such an enormous length in comparison 
to its breadth that it was described as the " shoe-string 
district." By these methods it has been possible to elect 
eleven congressmen for an area equal in population to 
another area which only returned two members to the chief 
legislature. 

By the terms of the Constitution each State, no matter 
what its area or population, is entitled to two Senators and 
no more. Consequently, as the advocates of proportional 
representation are frequently pointing out, it is possible for 
fifteen smaller States to exercise the same influence in the 
national Senate as fifteen times a State having a population 
equal to all the fifteen. " States having less than one-sixth 
of the population choose a majority of the entire Senate, 
while more than five-sixths of the people of the country are 



President and Congress 23 

represented by a minority of that body. The State of Nevada, 
under the last census, had less than 43,000 people. If New York 
were permitted to have the same proportional representation 
in the Senate, it would have some 350 Senators." 

To the foregoing anomaly must be added the further con- 
sideration that the Senate possesses enormous powers. An 
American who was once reminded that the 

Powers of English House of Lords, in favour of whose 
the Senate. , ,. . , , , , • ■, -, ^ 

abolition he had been arguing, had less power 

than the Senate of his own country, was unabashed enough to 
exclaim, " Of course it has." Such is the case, for although 
money bills must originate in the House of Representatives, 
the Senate possesses, and frequently exercises the authority 
to amend those bills and increase their appropriations. As, 
too, Senators are elected by the legislatures of the various 
States, they are almost as much removed from popular 
control as a hereditary chamber. The method of the election 
of Senators is one of the burning questions of practical Ameri- 
can politics, there being an ever-growing agitation in favour 
of popular voting. 

Owing to the six-years' senatorial term and to the fact 
that it is a smaller and more workable body, plus the advan- 
tage of powers second in importance only to those of the 
President, the Senate has greater attractions for the serious 
politician than the House. It is in that chamber, consequently, 
that the representatives of the powerful industrial organisa- 
tions and the chief lawyers and leaders of State politics are 
to be found. It has been dubbed " the milHonaire's club," 
by reason of its members including so many men of great 
wealth and also perhaps because it is supposed to favour the 
great vested interests. Nevertheless, the present President, 
Woodrow Wilson, contends that the Senate " represents the 
country, as distinct from the accumulated populations of the 
country, much more fully and much more truly than the 
House of Representatives does." On the other hand, how- 
ever, there are publicists who argue that as at present 



24 America of the Americans 

constituted the Senate is out of touch with present-day 

conditions. 

In addition to such pri\'ileges as freedom from arrest during 

the sessions of Congress save for treason or felon3% and freedom 

of speech in debate, Senators and Repre- 

Salaries of sentatives ahke enjoy a yearly salary of $7,500 
Congressmen. ., -,^, , ,,•* :, ' , 

(il.sOOV. plus travellmg allowances and a 

further sum for " clerk hire." The last item is higher for a 
Senator than for a Representative, the former receiving 
$1,800 {/340) as compared with the $1,500 (/300) for the lat- 
ter. In addition each congressman is allowed a considerable 
sum for stationery. The *' clerk hire " and the stationery 
are recognition of the fact that a Congressman has to deal 
with a vast amount of correspondence, and it was as a con- 
cession to that tax upon their time that the seats of Senators 
and Representatives were equipped with a large writing-desk. 
The desks still remain in the Senate and House, and a casual 
\isitor to either chamber will perhaps be astonished to obser\'e 
that most of their occupants, instead of listening to the 
debates, are engrossed in writing, or in reading newspapers. 
Many Americans, however, are growing ashamed of the 
" ragged appearance " of their chief legislature, and harbour 
the hope that now the Congressmen have voted themselves 
" clerk hire " the desks will soon be abohshed. 

As any member of Congress is at libeny to introduce as 
many bills as he pleases, and as it is by such means that 
Congressmen can secure money grants for their constituencies 
— a process which is tersely described as " getting pork out 
of the public pork-barrel " — it may be imagined that the 
^■olume of legislative business is prodigious. For one member 
to introduce ten bills at a single sitting, each an attempt to 
" get pork," is nothing out of the ordinary ; while the total 
of bills, etc., submitted in one Congress has reached the 
amazing figure of 35.000 ! Of these, however, less than 
8,000 became law. The remainder were massacred by the 
various committees to which they were referred. 



President and Congress 25 

For an elaborate machinery of standing committees is an 

essential element of the American system of government. They 

vary in number, but as the total for the two 

^c^ ^*^tt^^"^ chambers has exceeded 130, it is obvious that 
it must be difficult to introduce a bill which 
does not come within the province of one of them. Unless 
the committee to which it is referred reports on a bill, it is 
never brought before the House or Senate or heard of again. 
These committees, it should be added, always have a majority 
of the dominant party, and in the main they carry on their 
work in secret. This method of legislation has been severely 
criticised by members of the House, one of whom summed up 
the situation in this indictment : " You send important 
questions to a committee ; you put into the hands of a few 
men the power to bring in bills, and then they are brought 
in with an ironclad rule, and rammed down the throats of 
members ; and then those measures are sent out as being the 
dehberate judgment of the Congress of the United States 
when no dehberate judgment has been expressed by any man." 

Save among those who are " in the game," the average 
American opinion of the pohtician is not flattering. It 
regards pohtics as " not a proper thing for a cultured man 
to touch." A business man of an alert mind and possessing 
considerable oratorical gifts when asked to run for Congress 
declared that he '* took it as a personal insult," while Mr. 
Roosevelt's family stoutly opposed his resolve to embrace a 
pohtical career on the plea that his colleagues would be 
" nobody but grooms, hquor dealers and low poHticians." 
That moral character is not deemed an essential quahfication 
for political leadership is cogently illustrated by the fact that 
for the presidential contest of 1908 the Socialist Labour party 
nominated as its candidate a man who was in prison serving 
a sentence of twenty-five years for murder ! 

American scorn of the pohtician and indifference to corrup- 
tion and " boss " rule are the harvest of the dominance of the 
political machine. Intelligent and high-minded citizens, 



26 America of the Americans 

besides comforting themselves with the American proverb 
that " God takes care of drunkards, Httle children, and 

the United States," declare that they have 
i^^"^" no motive for taking an interest in political 
to Politics. questions, inasmuch as the control of a party 

does not ensure the control of the govern- 
ment. It is only necessary to compare the presidential 
" platforms " of the Republicans and Democrats to reahse 
that neither of those parties has any dynamic relation to the 
issues of the present day. The former came into existence 
to oppose the extension of slavery, and, among other things, 
favour a broad interpretation of the Constitution, a high 
protective tariff, the gold standard, and the supremacy of 
the federal as opposed to State government. On the other 
hand, the Democratic party is pledged to the strict letter of 
the Constitution, advocates a low tariff for revenue purposes, 
is opposed to the centralising of governmental power, and has 
no sympathy with that Repubhcan imperiahsm which brought 
the Philippines within the sphere of American influence. But 
either party will pilfer each other's thunder when occasion 
is ripe. The chief plank in the Roosevelt platform, for 
example, war on the Trusts, was annexed from the Democrats. 
In his new pose as the leader of the Progressive party, Mr. 
Roosevelt has constructed a platform the planks of which 
have been filched indifferently from the programmes of the 
Socialists, Labourites, and Populists. The one modern party 
which has followed a single ideal with unchanged tenacity 
is that of the Prohibitionists, who are frankly pledged to 
" the enactment and enforcement of laws prohibiting and 
abolishing the manufacture, importation, transportation, and 
sale of alcoholic beverages." But pending that new alignment 
of parties which the pressure of modern problems must evolve, 
the chief combat in the poHtical arena will be waged between 
the Democrats and Republicans, for even the strongest of the 
minor parties can command only an insignificant vote in a 
presidential campaign. 



CHAPTER II 

STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT 

Whoever travels from San Francisco to New York by the 
" Sunset Route " of the Southern Pacific Railroad and has 
occasion to study the wine Hst in the buffet car, can hardly 
fail to observe the following foot-notes at the bottom of that 
card : 

" No wines or hquors sold between Redlands Junction and 
Yuma, or in Texas, Louisiana, Oregon, or on Sunday in 
New Mexico." 

" No cigars or cigarettes sold in Louisiana on Sunday." 

" No cigarettes sold in Nevada, Nebraska, or Washington.' 

While the native American has a clear understanding of 

the inwardness of those statements, travellers from other 

lands will naturally seek an explanation of 

of^G^emmeSs. *^^^^ meaning. And in reply he will be 

* informed that from Redlands Junction to 

Yuma the train passes through those counties of California 

in which local prohibition is in force ; and that during the 

journey across Texas and Louisiana it comes within the 

sphere of State prohibition. It should be added that the 

foot-notes in question are hable to change from time to time, 

inasmuch as States and counties suffer from alternate " wet " 

and " dry " spasms ; but as they have been quoted above 

they provide a concrete illustration of the manner in which 

the daily life of the American is regulated by the duality of 

his system of government. Such a journey indeed as that 

between San Francisco and New York is an object lesson in the 

overlapping of Federal and State control. As a fare-paying 

passenger, the traveller is under the law of Congress which 

regulates railroad rates, but his enjo5mient of a " wet " spell 

27 



28 America of the Americans 

or his disgust over a " dry " interval must be laid to the 
account of local or State ordinances. 

In addition to Congress, there are forty-eight law-making 

bodies in the United States, that is, one for each of the 

commonwealths included in the Union. That 

Forty-eight ^^^^ jg ^f course, a survival of colonial times. 

Parliaments, -r- , , , , , 

Each of the charter, or royal, or proprietary 

colonies had its governor and council and lower house plus 
various systems of local government, and when they formed 
a Union it was natural for them to preserve a continuity with 
their past. As Professor Charles A. Beard has reminded his 
countrymen, " American government did not originate in any 
abstract theories about hberty and equahty, but in the actual 
experience gained by generation after generation of English 
colonists in managing their own poHtical affairs. The Revolu- 
tion did not make a breach in the continuity of their institu- 
tional hfe." The same authority has also pointed out that 
many State constitutions still reveal traces of Revolutionary 
days ; indeed, the progressive history of the United States 
is perhaps more clearly illustrated in the constitutions of the 
various States than in any other documents. 

One of the most pronounced differences of the two great 

poUtical parties of to-day, the Democrats and Republicans, 

is related to the question of States rights. 

Democrats As the Republicans owe their existence and 
and State 
Rights. much of their tradition to their conquest in 

the Civil War, which in its origin had more to 
do with the problem of States rights than with slavery, they 
are committed to a Federal rather than a State poUcy ; in 
other words, the tendency of Repubhcanism is towards the 
centraHzation of authority. On the other hand, the Demo- 
crats chng to States rights with the tenacity of the heirs of 
that pohcy which justified the cotton States in leaving the 
Union. 

According to the letter of the Constitution, the eleven 
Southern States which formed the Confederacy of 1861 acted 



State and Local Government 29 

strictly within their rights in seceding from the Union, for 
that document did not prohibit a State from leaving the 

Union. Nor has it ever been amended to 

Limitation include such a prohibition. Yet the result of 

Rights. the Civil War is now accepted as having all the 

force of a constitutional law against secession. 
Hence, although some of the States may still style themselves 
" sovereign," the power to secede has been tacitly abandoned. 
And the Constitution expressly defines other hmitations of 
States rights. For example, no State can impose duties on 
exports or imports, arrange treaties with foreign nations, 
seriously interfere with interstate commerce, coin money or 
issue bills of credit, impair the obligation of contracts, or 
deprive any person of life, Hberty, or property without process 
of law. 

If, however, a State has no power over tariff rates or such 
high matters as international politics, its authority over the 
daily Hfe of the citizen is more immediate than that of Con- 
gress. It touches the " common round, the daily task " at 
a multitude of points, for it presides at the birth, directs 
the education, interferes with the trade, regulates the mar- 
riage and divorce, taxes the property, and adjudicates 
upon the moral behaviour of all who reside within its 
bounds. 

That duahty of legislative and executive departments 
which has been shown to prevail in Federal affairs is repeated 

in the forty-eight State governments. That 
Constitution jg ^q gay, each State has its two-chambered 
Legislatures. Parliament though there is no uniformity 

in the generic name, which rings the changes 
on " the General Assembly," " the Legislative Assembly," 
and " the General Court." Contrary to the practice which 
obtains in connection with the Senate, all the members of 
the State legislatures. Senators as well as Representatives, 
are elected by popular vote, though in the majority of cases 
the Federal distinction of a longer term for a Senator is 



30 America of the Americans 

preserved. The payment of members is universal, but th^re 
uniformity stops, for the salaries range from $3 (12s.) to S12 
(£2 8s.) per day or from $200 (£40) to $1,500 (£300) a year, 
with other variations in the case of those States which remu- 
nerate their law-makers by the session. The latter legislate 
on a kind of piece-work scale, being paid so much a day for 
a specific number of days and only a third of that amount 
if the session is protracted beyond the given period. These 
State parliaments have no uniform time-table, for the sessions 
vary from annual to quadrennial sittings, and in some States 
a definite period of from forty to ninety days is allowed for 
the session. 

Reference has already been made to the amazing total of 
bills passed by Congress in a single session, and when that 

total is supplemented by the activities of 

OutoJJt^of forty-eight additional parliaments, it will be 

I^ws. seen that the legislative output of the United 

States is unrivalled. An example of the law- 
making luxuriance of a given State is provided by Massa- 
chusetts. At the close of one session of the General Court 
one of the Boston newspapers gave a list of the brief titles of 
the acts and resolves which had been passed by that assembly, 
and even in that abbreviated form they occupied no fewer 
than twelve columns of small print ! The acts numbered 
657 and the resolves 147, giving a total of 804 measures 
for a single session of one State ! Of course, the majority 
of these ordinances were concerned with trivial affairs, includ- 
ing such matters as empowering a county treasurer to 
" employ clerical assistance," or giving a town permission to 
acquire a plot of land for a pubHc hall or providing for " the 
protection of grey squirrels " ; and in that fact, according to 
some Americans, may be found the reason why State legis- 
latures only attract men of small calibre or those whose 
integrity is questionable. 

One result of this fecundity in law-making — in a given five 
years the State legislatures have passed more than 45,000 acts I 



State and Local Government 31 

— has been to strengthen the demand for less legislation. 
" There are too many laws on our statute books," pro- 
tested a New York editor. " The freedom 
Too Many ^f America has become a joke. The oppressed 
Russian peasant and the unhappy citizen of 
monarchical Great Britain each is many degrees freer men 
than a pohce-driven, reform-ridden American. Because one 
does not drink whisky is no reason why he should insist on 
a law to make the distilling of spirits a felony. Because the 
majority of the legislators go smooth shaven or indulge at 
the most in the way of facial adornment in a moustache, that 
would afford no just cause for outlawing Governor Hughes." 
This is not mere journalistic prejudice ; in America, confesses 
a University professor, " the State interferes with what is 
commonly regarded as individual liberty perhaps as much as 
any country in the world." 

But another and more immediately serious result is the 
constant perplexity of citizens and even lawyers as to the 
state of the law on a given subject. The president of a great 
railroad is on record as saying that he was anxious to obey 
the law, but had great difficulty in finding out what it was, 
while a legal authority afiQrms that no lawyer can advise a 
client on the simplest propositions of marriage or divorce 
without sending not only to his own State legislature but for 
the most recent statute of any other State bearing on the 
question. The situation, indeed, has reached this pass : 
"All those doing business under a corporate firm primarily, 
but also those doing business at all ; all owners of property, 
all employers of labour, all bankers or manufacturers or con- 
sumers ; all citizens, in their gravest and their least actions, 
also must look into their papers every morning to make sure 
that the whole law of life has not been changed for them by a 
statute passed overnight." 

In view of the average abihty and character of the men 
attracted to the State legislatures, it is not surprising that 
informed American opinion has but slight regard for the 



32 America of the Americans 

form and contents of their ordinances. In form they are 
often " full of contradictions, omissions, repetitions, bad 

grammar, and bad spelling " ; while their 
, ^?Y^?* purport is too frequently designed to favour 

powerful corporations. What Mr. Roosevelt 
asserted of New York State, the legislature of which meets at 
Albany, is believed to be more or less true of every common- 
wealth : " There is hardly one of the many and widely diver- 
sified interests of the State that has not a mouthpiece at 
Albany, and hardly a single class of these citizens, not even 
excepting, I regret to say, the criminal class, which lacks its 
representative among the legislators." Although some States 
have made praiseworthy attempts to defeat the lobbying 
which is thoroughly organised in the interests of big corpora- 
tions, on which one insurance company spent more than a 
million dollars in ten years, the system has taken so deep a 
root in American pohtical life that its final eradication is 
probably far distant. 

Some State legislation is calculated to deceive the non- 
elect. For it must not be imagined that the party " boss " 
and the dominant party in a legislature always display a 
callous indifference to bills intended to protect the morals 
of a community ; on the contrary, a considerable body of 
legislation of that type is often warmly supported by men 
of a known dubious reputation. For example, cases are on 
record of religious bodies having used their influence to secure 
the introduction of bills imposing heavy fines on gambling- 
saloons and houses of ill-fame, which bills, to the amazement 
of the uninitiated, have received the effectual support of 
politicians and legislators who were suspected of being in 
league with gamblers and procurers. But the explanation 
is simple : the party " boss " takes the biggest share of the 
hush-money which is collected by the pohce as the price of 
" protection " for gambling dens and houses of prostitution ; 
consequently, the heavier the fine imposed by law the higher 
the rate charged for " protection." 



State and Local Government 33 

All these considerations help to elucidate why the current 
of opinion is setting strongly against State legislatures ; why 
there is a growing distrust of such assemblies ; 
State j^-jryy there is an ever-increasing tendency to 

out of Favour, limit the periodicity and length of their 
sessions ; why the newer State Constitutions 
are limiting the power of the legislature ; and why the powers 
of the Governor are being amplified. It is a great temptation 
to draw a comparison between the President of the Union and 
the Governor of a State, but such an exercise is full of pitfalls. 
Here again it is illuminating to consider colonial origins. 
While the thirteen original colonies were still attached to the 
mother country the governor was such in reality as well as 
name ; he was appointed directly or indirectly by the King, 
he recommended such laws as were thought advisable by the 
home government, he possessed an absolute veto, and could 
summon or adjourn or dismiss the legislature as he pleased. 
Consequently the Governor was regarded by the colonists 
as the embodiment of tyranny, and having suffered much at 
his hands, they naturally took particular care that under their 
own system of government his authority should be rigidly 
circumscribed. 

That limitation of the Governor's authority continued for 
many generations, but, as hinted above, the prevailing ten- 
dency of to-day is towards an increase of his 
^hirPowers"^ powers. No uniformity has been reached, 
or is hkely to be achieved, but the fact that 
in such a new State as Oklahoma the term of the Governor's 
office has been fixed at four years is significant. In two 
States the period is but one year, but in more than twenty the 
four-year term is in force. With rare exceptions, the salary 
of the Governor is hardly adequate to his position, for even 
the highest, $12,000 (£2,400), is a meagre sum judged by the 
American standard, while the lowest, $2,500 (£500) seems to 
touch the bottom of parsimony. Although in the past the 
Governor's appointing power has been small, there is a 

3— (2393A) 



34 America of the Americans 

tendency towards its increase, thus giving him a greater con- 
trol over the administration of the State. In some common- 
wealths his message is beginning to be regarded as a legislative 
programme, and many examples could be cited to show how 
his power of calling an extraordinary session of the legislature 
to consider measures which he favours has led to the enact- 
ment of valuable bills. But it is in the exercise of the veto 
that the Governor can most influence legislation. It is true 
that that veto can be nulHfied in most of the States by a 
measure being re-passed by a two-thirds majority of both 
houses, but in practice it has been found that the interval 
for reconsideration created by the veto has resulted in a check 
being placed on hasty or corrupt legislation. The Governor, 
in short, has a growing influence over legislation, the trend of 
which was illustrated by a striking incident in connection 
with one session of the Cahfornia legislature. At the end of 
the session the Governor had to decide whether he should or 
should not sign a large number of bills, a condition which 
gave him the virtual authority of a dictator. 

In recent years there has been established an organisation 

known as the House of Governors, one of the objects of which 

is the promotion of uniformity in State legis- 

House of lation, but an equally important feature of 
Governors. ,.'. ni- • ri 

which IS regular discussions of the powers 

and responsibilities of the chief State officer. Such discussions 
give promise of practical results just because Americans are 
beginning to realise that the Governor must have enlarged 
executive powers if efficiency is to be obtained in State 
government. 

In addition to the Governor each State has a number of 
other executive officers, including a Secretary of State, Trea- 
surer, Auditor, Attorney-General, etc., while 
^£.*^.*® lower down in the scale are countless other 

functionaries charged with the administration 
of public works, education, charities, etc., etc. These offices 
are indifferently elective or appointive, with the result, in the 



State and Local Government 35 

former case, of the voter being called upon to give his decision 
on a number of men whose fitness for authority he is totally 
unable to judge. " So ignorant are the mass of us," declared 
one political leader, " actually and of necessity, about the 
special qualifications of the several men we vote for, that 
if the names on the ticket were shifted round, so that the 
candidate for Congress were running for State engineer, the 
superintendent of education for coroner, and the sheriff for 
judge, it would be all the same to us in nine cases out of ten." 
Hence the growing agitation for what is called the " short 
Ballot," that is, a briefer hst of candidates. For Americans 
do not realise or are not ripe for the acceptance of the doctrine 
that what is at the root of all the defects of their government 
is the pernicious rotation system. 

For if there are constant complaints as to the overlapping, 
confusion, and inefficiency of State government, they are but 

faint whisperings compared with the indict- 
Municipal mgnts of municipal government. There are 

no more severe critics of American institutions 
than Americans themselves, and even the most conservative 
of their number freely admit that " the problem of American 
municipal government has not been solved to the satisfaction 
of any one." Most of the cities derive their powers from the 
State legislature under the terms of a charter, but there even 
limited uniformity stops, for the forms of municipal govern- 
ment are bewildering in their variety, though in the majority 
of cases the council and mayor type prevails. The latter 
officer usually has a large appointing power, and as he gener- 
ally owes his position to a political party, he naturally uses 
his authority to pay his election debts. Consequently the 
election of a new mayor is followed by a clean sweep of most 
of the city officials. And their successors owe their good 
fortune not to proved efficiency for the control of their various 
departments, but to their influence with the poHtical " boss." 
This is what one candid American describes as " the debasing 
and degrading system of treating pubhc office as a reward for 



36 America of the Americans 

partisan activity that has gained so strong a hold in the 
United States." The same wTiter, President Butler, sums up 
the situation thus : " Efficient pubUc service is a mark of 
ci\'ilisation. To turn over the care of great public under- 
takings to the self-seeking camp-followers of some political 
potentate, is barbaric. Teachers are the first to insist that 
incompetent and untrained persons shall not be allowed in 
the service of the schools. \\hy, then, should they tolerate 
the sight of a house-painter, instead of an engineer, super- 
vising the streets and roadways of a city of a hundred thousand 
inhabitants, or that of an ilhterate hanger-on of a party boss 
presiding over the public works of a great metropolis ? These 
instances, drawn at random from recent poHtical history, are 
typical of conditions that will be found widely dit^used 
throughout our pubUc ser\'ice." 

Revelations as to the inefficiency and costliness of city 
government are the constant pabulum of the daily newspapers. 
It is not merely that letters to the editor complaining of ill- 
paved streets, inditferent lighting, pohce t\Tanny. etc., are 
of frequent occurrence, but that commissions of inquir\'' are 
often reporting on such and similar blemishes. For example, 
a citizens' committee in Boston specially engaged the services 
of a street -cleaning expert to report on the condition of their 
city, and the report of that expert, besides showing that the 
cost of street -cleaning had increased some 45 per cent, in eight 
years, declared that " a business conducted as is the average 
city department would be bankrupt very shortly." He added 
that discipline was lax, expenses out of all proportion to 
the results, and that the ci\il ser^-ice regulations were 
circumvented. 

But it is perhaps in connection with the police that mimi- 

cipal government is shown at its worst. Ex-President Eliot 

has described the comphcity of the police 

S^°d2 ^^^^^ ^^^^ worst x-ices as the greatest blot on 

American city government, a charge which 

is sustained by the uncliallenged assertion that " at the present 



State and Local Government 37 

day there is no more successful get-rich-quick institution than 
the control of an American municipal pohce force," for in 
most cities the exploitation of vice is carefully S5mdicated. 
" Every brothel must pay a fixed sum each month to the 
captain of the pohce precinct in which it is situated, just as 
it pays a periodical fine monthly or bi-monthly to the muni- 
cipal authorities. The blackmail extorted by the police 
captain is passed on by him after he has retained his com- 
mission to his superior police officer, who in turn takes his 
commission and passes it on until it reaches the head of the 
police force and is by him transmitted to the political leader 
who stands at the head of the vice syndicate." Perhaps it 
is not surprising that officers who are allowed to exploit vice 
for monetary profit develop a somewhat autocratic tempera- 
ment. The New York policeman, for example, is usually 
regarded as the personification of despotism. He has been 
known to charge a citizen because he laughed at him ! On 
that immortal occasion the magistrate offered the constable 
derisive sympathy ; he was, he said, " too sensitive a soul 
to be permitted to pound the pave. You ought to be wrapped 
in jeweller's wool and laid away in an alabaster vase. I know 
this man ought to be electrocuted for laughing at you. He 
ought to be drowned in boiling oil, or something harsh hke 
that ; but you will realise, of course, that the law has 
overlooked the offence of laughing at a poHceman." 

Yet because these things have been it must not be imagined 
that they are accepted as inevitable. The average American 

is thought to be indifferent to how he is 
"Hibernian^ governed provided he " makes his pile," and 

it is doubtless true that the evolution of the 
professional politician accounts for the lack of civic traditions 
and civic morality. In the opinion of Professor E. A. Ross, 
it is the " Hibernian domination " in American cities which 
has given them the name of being the worst -governed in the 
civihsed world. " The mismanagement and corruption of the 
great cities of America have become a planetary scandal, and 



38 America of the Americans 

have dealt the principle of manhood suffrage the worst blow 
it has received in the last half-century. Since the close of the 
Civil War, hundreds of thousands of city-dwellers have 
languished miserably or perished prematurely from the bad 
water, bad housing, poor sanitation, and rampant vice in 
American municipahties run on the principles of the Celtic 
clan." But a brighter day is dawning. Municipal reform 
is attracting countless enthusiastic adherents. The search- 
hght of publicity in newspapers, magazines, reports and 
books is being turned upon the dark places of city misgovern- 
ment. In several States municipal bureaus have been 
established and are being sustained by voluntary subscrip- 
tions ; Good Government leagues are springing up all over the 
country ; the Civic Federation is tackhng the urban problem 
from various standpoints, and altogether the outlook is most 
promising. 

One of those appalling nature catastrophes to which the 

United States is so subject has given an immense impetus 

to municipal reform. In the autumn of 1900 

Government ^ terrific hurricane swept over Galveston, a 
seaport of Texas, destroying property to the 
value of $17,000,000, and causing the loss of some 6,000 hves. 
The municipal government, which was of the old corrupt 
type, being totally unable to deal with such a situation, 
the citizens elected a number of their principal business men 
as a commission to grapple with the rebuilding of the city. 
That experiment proved a triumphant success, for in seven 
years a huge debt was paid off, the city rebuilt, and countless 
improvements introduced. That object lesson has not been 
unheeded ; the Galveston plan has been adopted by numerous 
cities all over the country, and bids fair to become the most 
universal model. Americans, however, had no necessity to 
await the Galveston catastrophe and experiment to disclose 
the merits of the commission form of municipal government ; 
they had long been exemphfied in the case of the capital, 
Washington, D.C., which was placed under that form of control 



State and Local Government 39 

in 1874. There a great city is ruled in the wisest manner 
by a committee of three, and as the citizens have no vote for 
either of those commissioners or any of the laws under which 
they live, it seems clear that such an outrage of the democratic 
principle is capable of the best results. 

As States and cities differ so much from each other in their 

methods of government, it naturally follows that the rural 

districts present no uniformity. All the 

qq^^^^^ f States with a single exception are divided into 
counties, and the counties have further sub- 
divisions of towns, townships, etc. The oldest type of rural 
government is illustrated by the town meeting of New England, 
which all voters have the privilege of attending to discuss and 
decide upon men and measures. On the surface, a town meet- 
ing looks hke an entirely spontaneous and untrammelled 
gathering at which the best men and the wisest measures 
will receive overwhelming support, but in practice in too 
many cases the business is " cooked " by a preHminary 
caucus. But that survival of colonial days is fast yielding to 
the changing spirit of the times, for in rural as well as State 
affairs the most marked tendency is towards increasing 
centrahsation. 



CHAPTER III 

EDUCATION 

Americans have a passion for education, or for knowing, 
which may not always be the same thing. A favourite 

phrase for the blackboard in immigrant 

^^^ schools is : "If the torch of hberty is to 

Moven^nt^ enlighten the world, it must be fed from the 

lamp of knowledge." The healthy curiosity 
which is a national trait has given a new word to the language, 
for a " Chautauqua " is not necessarily one of those summer 
gatherings by the side of the picturesque lake of that name 
in western New York State. That summer settlement, how- 
ever, is the model which all Chautauquas imitate more or 
less closely. Founded originally the better to equip Bible 
teachers, it has developed into one of the most potent extra- 
university institutions of the country. The yearly programme 
embraces the Assembly and the Summer School, the former 
consisting of a course of lectures and concerts and enter- 
tainments, and the latter of a more purely academical 
instruction in English language and literature, classical and 
modern languages, mathematics and science, psychology and 
pedagogy, music, arts and crafts, and the practical arts. 
The Assembly attracts a vast concourse, but the Summer 
School can count its pupils by the thousand, while the Literary 
and Scientific Circle continues its activities all through the 
year by local circles which may be found in every State of the 
Union. The success of the original Chautauqua Institution 
has led to a widespread imitation in the organising of countless 
Correspondence Schools for every conceivable subject, the 
universal success of which is another illustration of the 
national passion for knowing. 

It might be imagined that this keen interest in education 

40 



Education 41 

owes its origin to the fact that no country has a more serious 
imnigrant problem. America, as Israel Zangwill has 
Iirjtnigration demonstrated in his arresting play, is *' the 
and melting pot " of the nations. That drama, how- 

Edacation. ever, like many of the same type which have 
been produced in the United States in the last decade, prac- 
tically limits itself to the clash between American and Jewish 
ideals ; the problem created by immigration is far vaster and 
more intricate than the collision of two ahen types. To glance 
over an average table of immigration is to take a lesson in 
world-wide geography, for there is hardly a nation of the 
earth which does not contribute some quota to the more than 
a milhon ahens which have entered the United States in a 
single year. But within the last generation a marked change 
has taken place in the character of that immigration ; that is 
to say, whereas in earher times the majority of the immigrants 
came from Great Britain and Germany, the present tendency 
is for the majority to be contributed by southern Europe. 
This means that the new-comers of to-day are more ignorant, 
more criminal, and poorer in physique and wordly goods than 
their predecessors. Hence it is not surprising that some of 
the pohtical platforms are demanding restrictive legislation 
to cope with the problem of cheap southern Europe labour. 
Nor should it be forgotten that this deterioration in the 
quality of immigration compHcates the native ilhterate enigma 
presented by the low educational standards of the negroes and 
" poor whites " of the Southern States. 

Yet it is not wholly the case that American interest in 
education owes its existence to the riddle of immigration. 

On the contrary, that interest is one of the 
kf EdJcathTn! o^"^^st ^^^ proudest traditions of the country. 

If a modern American has declared that what 
the American people need is ten per cent, of thought and 
ninety per cent, of action, it should be remembered that the 
early Americans would have reversed the quantities. For 
the new settlement of Massachusetts was not many years old 



42 America of the Americans 

ere it turned its attention to the question of education. 
" After God had carried us safe to New England " — so runs 
a passage from a letter of 1640, which is inscribed on the ^ates 
of Harvard University — " and wee had builded our houses, 
provided necessaries for our livelihood, rear'd comenient 
places for God's worship, and setled the Civil Government ; 
One of the next things we longed for, and looked after was to 
advance Learning, and perpetuate it to Posterity ; dreading 
to leave an illiterate Ministry to the Churches, when our 
present Ministers shall lie in the Dust." A Latin school had 
been founded at Boston before the organisation of Harvard, 
and in 1647 the General Court of the colony enacted a law 
providing an elementary school for each group of fifty famihes 
and a grammar school for each community of a hundred 
households. It is obvious, then, especially as a school was 
opened in New York at an even earher date, that the American 
faith in the blessings of education is derived from the traditions 
of colonial days. 

Yet even to-day there is no uniform system of elementary 
education. Remembering the high character of the men who 

framed the Constitution, it might have been 

No Uniform anticipated that they would have included 

Education. education among the matters regulated by 

that document, and the fact that they did not 
explain why its control has been assumed by the various 
States. At different periods it has been suggested that the 
elementary school system should be placed under Federal 
authority and regulation, and that Congress should establish 
a national University, but each scheme has always encoun- 
tered strong opposition. Hence the Federal government has 
nothing more than an advisory relation to educational matters. 
In connection with the Department of the Interior there is a 
Bureau of Education presided over by a Commissioner, but 
his powers are limited to the collection of statistics, the study 
of educational problems in general, and the preparation of 
reports and pamphlets. More than forty annual reports and 



Education 43 

four hundred miscellaneous volumes have been published by 
the Bureau, all of them rich in statistical and informing data. 

According to the latest report of the Federal Commissioner, 

there are 18,035,118 pupils enrolled in the common schools, 

accommodated in some 260,000 school-houses, 

^^S u°'^"'^'' and instructed by 533,606 male and female 
*" °° ^' teachers at a cost of $446,726,929. Even 
these astounding figures are not exhaustive, for they take 
no account of the value of school property, or of private estab- 
hshments. It is estimated, however, that nine-tenths of 
elementary education and the training of teachers, over 
two-thirds of secondary education, and over a third of college 
and higher technical education are provided and controlled by 
the States. Professional education, apart from the training of 
teachers and engineers, is largely a matter of private enterprise. 

If, however, the Federal Constitution takes no notice of 

education and Congress has no authority to interfere, the 

various State governments are fully alive to 

fn^Educatfon^ ^^^^^ responsibihty. For example, the 
Constitution of Massachusetts contains the 
following comprehensive ordinance : " Wisdom and know- 
ledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body 
of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their 
rights and liberties ; and as these depend on spreading the 
opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts 
of the country, and among the different orders of the people, 
it shall be the duty of legislatures and magistrates, in all 
future periods of this commonwealth, to cherish the interest 
of hterature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them ; 
especially the university at Cambridge, public schools and 
grammar schools in the towns ; to encourage private societies 
and pubUc institutions, rewards and immunities, for the 
promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, 
manufactures, and a natural history of the country." Inas- 
much as the law adopted by the General Court in 1647 is 
regarded as the foundation of the educational system of the 



44 America of the Americans 

country, and as most State constitutions repeat in some form 
or other the ordinance quoted above, it is obvious that 
American interest in education is to be attributed to colonial 
traditions. At any rate, it is the accepted faith of the Union 
that the education of youth is essential to the well-being of the 
nation ; that if the obligation to provide that education rests 
with the parent the State has the right to enforce its discharge ; 
that the State may also devise the standard of education to 
be given ; that public money may be raised to carry out this 
programme ; and that the State is within its rights in supplying 
higher as well as elementary tuition. 

Admirable as is this system, its efficiency is handicapped 

in one particular. In addition to compulsory schools, licensing 

of teachers and general supervision, most of 

AttTndIn°c7 ^^^ States have adopted a form of compulsory 
attendance, but the last-named regulation 
is far less strictly enforced than the three former. So lax, 
indeed, is the administration of the compulsory attendance 
laws that it may be doubted whether the States possessing 
such laws can boast a higher average of attendance than those 
in which there are none. This lack of uniformity extends to 
school control, which varies considerably. 

Of course the rural school represents the unit of the American 

educational system, and this is under the supervision of a 

county superintendent or similar official. 

^S^ch^or^ The importance of that unit will be readily 
understood when it is remembered that one- 
half of the school population attends the rural school and 
that 95 per cent, of those children receive all their education 
there ; yet it is in connection with the rural school that most 
apathy has been shown. While secondary and higher educa- 
tion have been organised and endowed to a high pitch of 
efficiency, the majority of rural schools are badly equipped 
in buildings and staff. The difference between urban and 
rural education is eloquently expressed by the fact that while 
an average of $33 is being spent on the tuition of the city child 



Education 45 

the average for the rural child is only about $13. The salary 
of the rural teacher is also deplorably small, for in the Union 
as a whole the average is less than $300 (£60) per annum ! 

These defects are in course of remedy. The enthusiasm 
which has accompHshed so much for secondary and higher 
education is now directing its attention to the rural problem, 
with the result that the present programme for reform is 
aiming at better school buildings, more efficient organisation 
and supervision, ampler training and a more adequate salary 
for teachers, and a general overhauling of the curriculum. 
Notable improvements have already been made. In the 
matter of school buildings, for example, the type so dear to 
sentiment as celebrated by Whittier — 

Still sits the school-house by the road, 

A ragged beggar sunning ; 
Around it still the sumachs grow, 

And blackberry-vines are running — 

the type of the old box-car or log hut, is giving place to model 
Httle buildings not unworthy of their humble position in the 
history of American school architecture. Great strides, too, 
are being made in improving the all-round equipment of the 
rural teacher, for some States have estabhshed admirable 
normal schools in which the teacher is so prepared for his and 
her future occupation that the buildings include a model 
rural school to which children of the countryside are daily 
conveyed in covered wagons, so that the normal school student 
may become famihar with the material and conditions which 
are to occupy his career. 

In the curriculum, too, of the rural school an effort is being 
made to conform it to the country child's own world instead 

of adhering to the model of the city school, 

Reform of ^^h its totally different interests. The theory 

School. of the reformers is that country life should 

cease to be a mere complement of city hfe, 
and be made complete in itself ; that if provision is made for 
the social starvation of rural districts by the introduction of 



46 America of the Americans 

music and art into the schools and thence into the farmhouses, 
the rural exodus will be arrested. In carrying out this 
programme much attention is being devoted to such practical 
matters as nature study, gardening, elementary agriculture, 
and the artistic adornment of the school building. While 
there are organisations, such as the School Improvement 
League of Maine, which are furthering these objects, and while 
some State superintendents are sympathetic and helpful, 
in many districts the teacher has to rely upon personal initia- 
tive and effort. And nobly are many of them labouring 
for the improvement of the village school. One example is 
illustrative of how difficulties are being met and overcome. 
A woman teacher on taking up her appointment in a new 
district found that although the school-house was scrupulously 
clean, its woodwork was painted in horrible colours and the 
walls hung with gaudy post cards and commercial placards. 
Her first step was to persuade the board to have the walls 
repainted in an artistic colour ; her next was to devise a plan 
to raise a voluntary fund for the decoration of the newly- 
painted walls. She hmited her programme to a desire to 
purchase carbon prints of Millet's " Angelus " and Rosa 
Bonheur's " Horse Fair," but so successful was the entertain- 
ment organised to that end that funds were available for the 
purchase of five pictures and one bust. 

In such more practical matters as nature study and garden- 
ing an increasing number of school-houses are being provided 

with garden plots and bird-boxes and toad- 
Stud^^ aquaria, while Arbor Day, devoted to the 

planting of trees, is becoming a feature of the 
rural school year. From France, too, a lesson has been taken 
in forming classes for " first ideas in agriculture," a much- 
needed step in the direction of linking the rural school with 
the State agricultural college. As a further step towards the 
all-round equipment of the rural school nearly thirty States 
have established Hbrary boards which send out traveUing 
hbraries and pubHsh leaflets of an advisory kind, one of which 



Education 47 

gives a list of the " First Hundred Books for the Children's 
Library." 

Although in the main private elementary schools are on 
the decrease, an exception must be made in favour of the 
nearly 5,000 Roman Cathohc parochial schools with their 
some 2,000,000 pupils. In the pubHc elementary schools all 
rehgious teaching is strictly prohibited, though in many the 
day's work is begun with a Bible reading, the Lord's Prayer, 
and a hymn. All these exercises, however, are Hable to evoke 
protest, as when the Jews of Chicago petitioned the school 
board to forbid the use of hymns which they regarded as 
hostile to their faith. 

As already intimated, secondary education is well organised 
and Hberally endowed, yet it is in connection with that type 

of tuition that private enterprise almost 
Private keeps pace with State activity. The chief 

reason for the prosperity of private prepara- 
tory schools is the reluctance of so many parents to send their 
children to public schools of that type. That such is the fact, 
however undemocratic it may seem, needs no further proof 
than that out of a total of 1,105,360 pupils in such schools, 
141,467 are classified as private. Perhaps these figures are 
the more remarkable in view of the fact that secondary 
education is as free as elementary. The free system, indeed, 
is being developed to an alarming extent, including books and 
stationery, medical advice, and food and clothing. 

Secondary schools, private and public ahke, are ahgning 
themselves more and more to the university standard, even 

though not more than 36 per cent, of their 
School?^ pupils are preparing for a university career. 

The curriculum, generally spread over four 
years, embraces Latin and Greek, French and German, algebra, 
geometry, physics, chemistry, physical geography, Enghsh 
hterature, etc. ; but as between the two classical languages, 
Latin, owing to Greek not being required as a degree subject 
at the leading univeisities, is preferred by the great majority 



48 America of the Americans 

of students. Owing to various causes, one of the chief being 
the aboHtion or simplification of college admission examina- 
tions, many of the secondary schools are of greater efficiency 
than some collegiate institutions. 

According to the statistics given in The World Almanac, 

there are in the United States no fewer than 596 universities 

and colleges, but in estimating the significance 

and^^College. ^^ *^^* amazing total, it must be remembered 
that in nearly all the States there is a very 
lax use of the words " university " and " college/' Although 
the scandal is not so pronounced to-day as a generation ago, 
the bogus degrees of equally bogus colleges, which were 
bestowed on a regulated cash scale, did much to lower esteem 
for American academical distinctions. That matter, however, 
as well as the loose use of the term " college " or " university," 
is now attracting the attention of State legislatures, with the 
result that in New York State the use of either term is pro- 
hibited except where the institutions conform to the require- 
ments of the State board of education. It is difficult to draw 
a distinction between so many institutions, but in the main 
it may be said that university instruction in the strict meaning 
of that term is chiefly imparted at the following institutions, 
arranged in their alphabetical order : California University, 
the Catholic University of America, Chicago University, 
Clark University, Columbia University, Cornell University, 
Harvard University, John Hopkins University, Michigan 
University, Pennsylvania University, Princeton University, 
Leland Stanford Junior University, Wisconsin University, 
and Yale University. With one exception, these also conform 
to the college type. The graduate course is of four years, the 
classes being divided into freshman, sophomore, junior and 
senior categories. In some of the universities, such as Chi- 
cago, California, and Leland Stanford, co-education obtains, 
that is, the course of instruction is open to and is the same for 
both sexes. Many of the more famous colleges, however, 
such as Wellesley, are for women only. 



Education 49 

In college and university alike, the most pronounced ten- 
dency of the age is towards what is known as vocational 
education. It is becoming more and more 
Vocational ^^^ ^^^e for an American university to consist 
of an aggregate of special schools for law, 
medicine, theology, science, agriculture, etc., in addition to 
a more humanistic department. Harvard is a case in point, 
for in addition to Harvard College its organisation embraces 
the Lawrence Scientific School, the Graduate School of Arts 
and Sciences, the Divinity School, the Law School, the Medical 
School, the Dental School, a School for Agriculture, and the 
Arnold Arboretum. It is not surprising, then, that a univer- 
sity president's report has been described as reading " Hke 
the prospectus of a new ocean steamship, with its gymnasium, 
lifts, barber's shop, swimming-pool, Turkish baths, library, 
card-room, grill-room, cafe, and cabins resplendent with gilt 
and mirrors." Utihty as contrasted with humanism is 
frankly proclaimed as the programme of many American 
colleges. In the calendar of one may be found such mercenary 
questions as these : " Does it pay to educate ? What are you 
worth ? As a servant, $140 a year. As a day labourer, 
$300 a year. As a farm hand, $240 a year. What may you 
be worth ? As a teacher, $500 a year up. As a business 
man, from $1,000 a year up. Conclusion : Why not increase 
your value ? Education only will do it." In other pros- 
pectuses are such alluring legends as : " Our graduates are 
sought for the most lucrative and responsible positions ; one 
of them handled over a miUion dollars for his firm in one 
year." Nowhere perhaps, save in Germany, is there a greater 
faith in the stark utility of education. 

That many of the universities are providing for extra- 
humanistic courses is not entirely to be regretted. At 
Harvard, for example, a bachelor's degree is necessary for 
entrance to all the professional schools save one. Nor is it 
other than a gain that there is a tendency for the universities 
to compete with the avowedly professional schools, for in 

4— («393A) 



50 America of the Americans 

proportion as that tendency becomes more pronounced there 
is less hkehhood of professional students missing the more 
humanistic influence of study. As will appear in a later chap- 
ter, too, American universities are not lacking in pure scholar- 
ship, for there is good ground for the assertion of a Rhodes' 
scholar that admirable as is the Oxford training in classics 
and philosophy and history, from the standpoint of scholar- 
ship it was not necessary for him to leave America to enjoy the 
best. In the matters of organisation and administration 
most of the American universities are strikingly efficient, 
while the extension of the curriculum assists in dispelling the 
idea that culture is confined to one branch of learning. 

One of the weak points of the American university system is 
the adoption of electives. And strangely enough, in view of 
his many great services to the cause of higher 
Sv^m*^^^ education, this pernicious concession to a 
spurious democracy has had no more effective 
advocate than ex-President Eliot of Harvard. It is the behef 
of that illustrious educator that a well-instructed youth of 
eighteen can select for himself a better course of study than 
any college faculty, as though, it has been objected, the 
wisdom of all the ages is as naught compared with the incHna- 
tion of a sophomore. Owing to Dr. Eliot's unique influence, 
the elective system has been widely adopted, although thefe 
is now a growing movement in favour of an intelligent restric- 
tion. At Harvard, for example, there has been introduced 
a new system of degrees which qualifies some of the worst 
evils of the elective. This reform has gained momentum 
because it has been seen that most of the students have made 
choice of a few large courses, impelled thereto, no doubt, by 
utility and the example of the greater number. 

In a comparative sense, however, the elective system is a 
trivial danger ; what are threatening the 

^r^atemltS^ efficiency and soHdarity of the universities 
are athletics and fraternities. All the pro- 
nounced tendencies of American life may be inferred from the 



Education 51 

jokes in the daily newspapers ; they offer a cross-section 
of the fads of the hour or the permanent flaws of institutions 
and classes. "Is he college-bred ? " runs one of these 
jokes. " Oh, no ! " is the answer, " he picked up his 
knowledge of rowing and baseball in his home town." 
Another typical jibe of the same class gives this dialogue : 
" There's a fellow out in Chicago who has written a book to 
prove that a college education ruins a man's career." " He's 
an ass. Why, many of the best ball-players we have were 
signed right out of college." A milder form of satire repre- 
sents a father saying to his son, " Remember, my boy, there 
are other things worth while in college besides athletics," to 
whom the hopeful rejoins, " I know. The mandohn and glee 
clubs aren't half bad." 

According to one of the most judicial of American pro- 
fessors, Irving Babbitt of Harvard, the real' snobbishness 
of American colleges arises not from the 
Snobbe'r^ worship of family or of wealth, although that 
is not unknown, but from the adoration of 
athletic prowess. " In his estimate of athletic as compared 
with intellectual achievement, the average American under- 
graduate is an undoubted snob, and is encouraged in his 
snobbishness by the newspapers and the public. The 
principal of a preparatory school who gave a position as teacher 
to a young man who could not even get his degree but had been 
prominent athletically is a snob of a very offensive type — 
at least as offensive as the Oxford dons who used to grant 
degrees to lords without the formality of an examination. 
Indeed, the American has suffered more seriously in his 
humane standards by his pampering of the athlete than the 
Enghshman by his truckling to the lord. . . . The American 
student pursues athletics as an end in themselves, and 
succumbs in true Baconian fashion to the ghtter of success." 

This is not a sohtary voice nor the most serious indictment. 
The great majority of American graduates and most of the 
principals and professors unhesitatingly condemn certain 



52 America of the Americans 

aspects of college athletics ; while it has been affirmed and 
not denied that the league teams of the colleges are " bought 
and sold in the open market," and that many cases are on 
record of good athletes receiving tempting offers to transfer 
themselves to rival universities. One of the worst evils of 
this premium upon physical prowess is that colleges have to 
suspend relations with each other, so bitter is the spirit of 
rivalry. But it would not be just to leave the reader with 
this unreheved picture ; by the organisation of athletics much 
has been accompHshed towards their purification. 

And in various universities an attempt is being made to 
counteract the bad influence of the fraternities. These 

organisations, most of them as secret as 

Opposition Freemasonry, are pecuHar to American student 

Fraternities. ^^^^> ^-nd are beHeved to be the outcome of the 

lack of that common social intercourse 
provided by residential halls. Nearly one-third of the stu- 
dents go through their course without becoming a fraternity 
member, and what that means may be inferred from the 
confession that a man who fails to " make " a club or a 
fraternity is regarded as a " barbarian," and carries the taboo 
all through after hfe. If he fails in " swiping " at Harvard, 
or " heehng " at Yale, or " getting into a following " at 
Princeton, he fails to obtain the full value of his college hfe. 
When it is remembered that the members of these fraternities, 
often called " Greek Letter Societies," because mostly named 
after two or three letters of the Greek alphabet, are chosen 
almost invariably from freshmen and that unless a freshman 
" makes " a fraternity in his first year his chances of doing 
so are remote, and that the members usually live together 
in a chapter house or lodge, and that the interests of the 
" frat " are always placed above those of the university, and 
that members retain their connection in all after hfe and 
return for the annual reunions, it will be reahsed that such 
organisations are a serious menace to the solidarity of a 
university and a stumbhng-block to democracy. 



Education 53 

Many efforts have been made to abolish or regulate these 
exclusive societies, and several of the States have either 
disbanded them by specific legislation or diminished their 
privileges. In the leading institutions, however, they con- 
tinue to flourish, and at present it seems as though the " Skull 
and Bones " of Yale and the secret clubs of Princeton are 
strongly entrenched in those universities. As prohibition has 
failed in those institutions which are not under public control, 
the problem is being attacked from another side, notably 
at Harvard, where three freshmen halls are now attempt- 
ing such a reorganisation of social life as may in the end 
undermine the fraternities. 

To the labours of the reformers who are battling with the 

athletic and fraternity evils should be added the advocacy 

of those scholars who are stemming the anti- 

^d"^^^r^*^*^ humanistic tide. Many American educators 
have as keen an appreciation of the value of 
a liberal education as the best exponents of the Oxford 
tradition ; they are deeply conscious that America needs a 
body of men devoted to the general good, who will raise the 
standard of hfe all round. Such, among others, are ex-Presi- 
dent W. J. Tucker, Henry D. Sedgwick, and Professor 
Babbitt. Mr. Sedgwick pleads constantly with his fellow 
countrymen to remember that the worthy things of hfe are 
to beheve in something holy, to act bravely in a good cause, 
etc. ; Dr. Tucker exhorted his students without ceasing not 
to miss the main object of a college career, a training in gentle- 
manhness ; and Professor Babbitt reminds his compatriots 
that it is upon education it depends whether such men as 
Messrs. Rockefeller and Harriman " become heroes of good or 
heroes of evil." It is in harmony with these voices that 
the conviction is growing that American men of wealth can 
well afford to offer their sons the luxury of an education which 
is beyond a utilitarian standard. This is an immense gain, 
well calculated to solve the perplexity of the many who are 
rich in dollars but poor in taste and imagination. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE FOURTH ESTATE 

When engaging an English journalist for an important depart- 
ment of his newspaper an American proprietor concluded 
the transaction with the remark : " I've had several of 
your countrymen bhnv into my office from time to time, and 
I've always found that English journalists are better trained 
than our own men." On the other hand, however, so experi- 
enced a newspaper owner as the late Joseph Pulitzer made 
no exceptions. " I've had scores of men pass through my 
hands," he once declared, " Englishmen, Scotsmen, Irishmen, 
Welshmen, Germans, Frenchmen, Americans, men of so- 
called high family, men of humble birth, men from a dozen 
universities, self-taught men, young men, old men, and what 
have I found ? Arrogance, stupidity, ingratitude, loose 
thinking, conceit, ignorance, laziness, indifference ; absence 
of tact, discretion, courtesy, manners, consideration, sympa- 
thy, devotion ; no knowledge, no wisdom, no intelligence, no 
observation, no memory, no insight, no understanding. I can 
hardly believe my own experience when I think of it." Yet, 
notwithstanding this sweeping impeachment, Mr. Pulitzer 
managed with such indifferent material to build up one of 
the most prosperous newspaper properties in the United 
States. 

That he had some confidence in his own exaggeration, 
however, may be inferred from his gift of $1,000,000 

(£200.000) to establish a School of Journalism 
School of jj^ connection with Columbia University, 
Journalism. , . , , • , r ^^^r» 

which was opened m the autumn of 1912. 

This was not the tirst American attempt to grapple with the 
problem of the training of the journalist ; some thirty univer- 
sities and colleges had jireviously offered courses in various 

54 



The Fourth Estate 55 

phases of newspaper work ; but the PuHtzer School of 
Journalism is the most liberally-endowed and the most 
practically-equipped experiment of its kind. The director, 
Dr. T. Williams, has to his credit nearly forty years' active 
newspaper work, while one-third of the teaching staff are 
experienced journalists ; the curriculum embraces history, 
constitutional law, poUtical science, economics, statistics, 
French or German, and technical journaHsm ; and the full 
course of four years has its climax in a degree of Bachelor of 
Literature in Journalism. As the course of study was designed 
by an advisory board of twelve leading journalists representing 
as many important metropolitan and provincial papers, it 
covers the entire field from the " cub reporter " to the editor, 
and the administrators report that their expectations of pupils 
have been considerably exceeded. 

But until such schools are greatly multiplied the Bachelors 
of Literature in Journalism will not go far towards meeting 
the requirements of American newspaper proprietors. Accord- 
ing to the latest statistics, the daily, bi-weekly, tri-weekly, 
weekly, and monthly pubhcations of the United States total 
22,855, with an aggregate circulation of 164,463,040 copies 
and a revenue of $351,662,500 (£70,332,500). The 126 pupils 
of the School of Journalism, or even the 250 students which 
are expected to be in training four years hence, are a Gideon's 
corps for such an enterprise. 

It is inevitable, then, that for some generations the ranks 

of American journalists will, as in the past, be recruited in a 

haphazard fashion from all kinds of occupa- 

Journalistic tions, from dealers in real estate, collectors 
Kecruits. 

of revenue, postmasters, lawyers, teachers, 

etc. The recruits sometimes fall out of the ranks with sur- 
prising rapidity ; for it is by no means unusual for men who 
have spent several years in a newspaper office to revert once 
more to widely different occupations. Moreover, that 
efficiency and success in newspaper enterprise are not depend- 
ent upon such training as that offered by the School of 



56 America of the Americans 

Journalism can be demonstrated by countless exceptions to 
the contrary. For example, Adolph S. Ochs, who owns and 
directly controls the New York Times, one of the best news- 
papers in America, began as a worker in a grocery store and 
gravitated thence to a druggist's shop ; while Frank A. 
Munsey, who owns several newspapers and magazines, started 
his business career in a country store, and was later a manager 
of a telegraph office. Such illustrations could be multiplied 
through all the grades of a newspaper office. 

Indeed, many of the greatest American editors may be said 
to have been created by circumstances. Horace Greeley, 
for example, notwithstanding his boyish 
Edkors^ taste for reading, seemed at one time destined 
to be nothing more than an ordinary labourer, 
while Edwin L. Godkin interrupted his journalism to coquet 
with the law. It would seem, consequently, that as much as 
other lands America illustrates the truism that an editor as 
well as a poet is born rather than made. And, given the 
democratic conditions of that country, it is a natural sequence 
that many editors there have been and are greater than their 
newspapers. That is to say, they often achieve a national 
reputation, whereas that distinction is attained by few 
newspapers. If, under Mr. Godkin, the Nation and the 
Evening Post had an influential rather than a large circulation, 
due perhaps to the fact that the former's indifference to popu- 
lar opinion won it the description of being a kind of " weekly 
Judgment Day," the editor of those organs was as national 
if not so popular a figure as Horace Greeley. There are 
journahsts of that type still in harness, for Colonel Henry 
Watterson and William J. Bryan and General Harrison Grey 
Otis stand for more in the popular estimation than the 
LouisviUe Courier-Journal, or the Lincoln Commoner, or the 
Los Angeles Times. 

America is too huge a country for any one newspaper to 
achieve a national circulation. The five days' train journey 
from New York to San Francisco, for example, must always 



4udl^ 




^f¥jfff'i 



ADOLPH S. OCHS 



The Fourth Estate 57 

prevent the New York Times or any other metropohtan 
newspaper from enjoying such a national circulation as that 

of the London Times. This obstacle of dis- 
A National idJiCQ plus a diversity of interests helps to 
Impossible. account for the fact that there are no replicas 

of such illustrated weeklies as the Graphic 
and Illustrated London News. Several years ago an attempt 
was made to establish a national weekly by the device of 
having half a dozen publishing and editorial offices working in 
conjunction with a distributing centre, but the experiment 
proved so costly that it was speedily abandoned. There are, 
however, several weeklies which manage to hold a State-v^dde 
constituency by giving a larger space to fiction and " human 
interest " articles than to news as such. Such pubhcations, 
for example, as Collier's Weekly, Leslie's Weekly, and the 
Saturday Evening Post, the first of which styles itself " The 
National Weekly," cannot hope to compete with local daihes 
in the matter of current events, though two of them indulge 
in editorial comment after the manner of the daily. But in 
the main they manage to give a flavour of timehness b}/ deahng 
originally with outstanding or pressing problems, fiUing in 
the remainder of their space with fiction and articles of a 
semi-magazine character. The Saturday Evening Post, which 
has perhaps the largest national circulation of any weekly, 
is for all intents and purposes a magazine with a high literary 
and pictorial standard. 

If, however, newspapers are debarred from a national 
circulation not a few have a national reputation. In other 

words, their editorial opinions are widely 

Papers of quoted and respected. To this category 

Reputation, belong such old-established newspapers as 

the New York Evening Post, the Springfield 
Republican, and the Boston Transcript, though the last-named 
has lost its prestige so far as editorial authority is concerned. 
Each of these organs belongs to what the Americans call the 
" high brow " type of journal, especially the New York 



58 America of the Americans 

Evening Post, which is almost as aloof from popular interests 
as in the days of Mr. Godkin. On the whole that newspaper 
is the nearest American analogue to the London Times, 
reliable in its news service and commanding the most scholarly 
writers of the country. Far less attractive in its make-up 
is the Springfield Republican, which, to speak truly, has an 
unusually heavy appearance for an American newspaper. 
Quite recently an attempt has been made to " brighten " the 
Boston Transcript by the introduction of photographic illus- 
trations, but with disastrous results, for it cannot hope to 
compete in that matter with its rivals of the New England 
capital. The strength of the Boston Transcript is in its 
literary department under the editorship of Edwin F. Edgett. 
A Harvard man by training, Mr. Edgett has graduated in 
English as well as American journalism, has a catholic but 
judicious taste in literary matters, and is above all as com- 
petent a judge and kindly a critic of fiction as any literary 
editor in the country. 

Countless as are the American dailies they all, with the 
type of exception noted above, may be grouped into the two 

classes of yellow and non-yellow, allowing, of 
The Yellow course, for occasional lapses towards sobriety 

and sensationalism. The yellow journal is 
a typically American product, and broadly speaking is best 
represented by the Hearst series of newspapers. The con- 
troller of that series, WilHam R. Hearst, is one of the enigmas 
of the United States. That he has refined, even classical 
tastes, might be inferred from his generous gift of the famous 
Greek Theatre to the University of Cahfornia, and that he has 
rare gifts of administration and organisation his successful 
newspapers show ; but his pohtical ventures and his exploita- 
tion of sensational journalism are thought by many to coun- 
teract his virtues. It is beheved that Mr. Hearst cherishes 
high, even the highest, political ambitions, but at the moment 
of writing his chances of entering the White House are almost 
nil. The Hearst type of newspaper has been carefully 



The Fourth Estate 59 

analysed with the result that it has been found to deal with 
events and persons from the pain or disaster standpoint. 
" The event itself is of no significance. The loss of Hfe, the 
loss of happiness, the loss of property, the loss of reputation, 
death and destruction, is the whole story. In a word, it is 
an appeal to the hate reflex." Hence in the sphere of domestic 
interests the yellow journal is regarded as the friend of vice 
and the foe of virtue, and was by many held responsible for 
the murder of President McKinley ; while in the domain of 
international politics its influence is equally pernicious. 
The editorials of the Hearst papers, which are usually printed 
in glaring type, miss no opportunity to embitter American 
relations with England or any king-ruled country. Even 
American women who marry European titled husbands are 
held up to the scorn of the masses. It is pleaded for Mr. 
Hearst that he takes this tone in his newspapers in order to 
reach the masses, but that he is wholly sincere in advocating 
such pohtical measures as will, he beheves, improve social and 
economic conditions. 

Naturally, New York claims the larger number of great 

newspapers, though the chief cities, including Chicago with 

the Tribune and the Chicago Herald, Phila- 

^^Damef "^ delphia with the Public Ledger, and Washing- 
ton with the Washington Post, can boast 
the possession of journals of a metropolitan standard. Some 
readjustment of relative influence and prosperity has taken 
place in recent years in connection with the leading news- 
papers of the commercial capital, but no enumeration of the 
chief organs of New York would be complete which failed to 
include the New York Times, the Sun, the Tribune, the 
World, the Herald, and the Evening Post, Of these, the 
Herald and World are perhaps most given to lapses into 
sensational news features, though none — with the exception 
of the Evening Post — are indifferent to the value of " scoops." 
Sometimes those " scoops " or " beats " have been the result 
not of a fortunate accident but the harvest of forethought 



60 America of the Americans 

and a lavish expenditure of money. It was the Herald, for 
example, in the person of James Gordon Bennett, which scen- 
ted out the news importance of the discovery of Livingstone's 
whereabouts in Africa and commissioned Stanley to find him 
no matter what the cost. The Herald, indeed, whether under 
the control of the first or second James Gordon Bennett, has 
always made a strong feature of its news service plus a liberal 
supply of personal gossip and scandal. 

On the other hand, the World, under the strenuous direction 
of Joseph Pulitzer, has scored its greatest successes by 
fearless exposures of graft and corruption in 
u j^Q^^ . > high places. It took the lead, for example, 
in demanding an inquiry into the New York 
insurance scandal, fought against the Gas Trust of that city, 
was in the firing hne in the municipal campaign against Tam- 
many in a recent contest, and, through its Evening World, 
made a triumphant campaign for lower taxicab rates. It 
boasts, indeed, that it wears the badge of the hatred of 
Tammany as " a journahstic honour." It will even imperil 
its advertising revenue when popular sentiment is to be sup- 
ported, as when it flouted a powerful firm which made an 
effort to re-christen Greeley Square with its own name. 
Another great service rendered by the World is in the annual 
publication of its World Almanac and Encyclopedia, the latest 
issue of which extends to no fewer than 836 pages of closely- 
printed reading matter plus nearly 200 pages of advertise- 
ments. There is no year-book in the world which can compare 
with this Almanac at the price of 25 cents. 

Brilliant writing and trenchant attack have always been 

the most marked quaHties of the Sun, while the Tribune, the 

property of the late Whitelaw Reid, worthily 

The " Sun " maintains the Horace Greeley traditions. For 

" Tribune." many years the latter newspaper commanded 

the services of the best-known dramatic 

critic of America, WilHam Winter, and it still numbers on its 

staff one of the sanest judges of art and literature in the 




THE TIMES BUILDING, 
NEW YORK 



The Fourth Estate 61 

person of Royal Cortissoz. The Sun and Tribune have also 
always been distinguished for the excellence of their cable 
service from London, the former paper supporting a well- 
organised newsagency in the British capital. 

As an all-round journal, however, combining fearlessness 
with an admirable news service of " all the news that's fit 

to print " plus a high standard in the pre- 
Y k T ^^ " sentation of that news, the New York Times, 

under the direction of Adolph S. Ochs, has 
attained an enviable position among the greatest newspapers 
of America. Its rank in the Fourth Estate, indeed, is well 
symbolised by the landmark made by the Times building on 
Times Square, in a city of sky-scrapers. In its earlier years 
it waged a fierce conflict with the Tweed Ring of Tammany, 
thereby exposing a deal which wasted $8,000,000 of public 
money, while since Mr. Ochs assumed control it has dis- 
tinguished itself by decHning a huge advertising contract 
which was offered on conditions which impHed indirect 
influence over the policy of the paper. The Times has always 
been an independent journal, and maintains that tradition 
intact. Its news service is exhaustive, its editorial comment 
authoritative, and its Saturday Hterary supplement is unique 
for the promptitude and space given to reviewing the latest 
books. The Sunday edition of the Times, too, is in the first 
rank of such pubhcations for the wealth and quahty of its 
illustrations and the magazine standard of its articles. 

Although the normal daily issues of some American news- 
papers are voluminous productions, notably the Wednesday 

and Saturday numbers of the Boston Trans- 
N^ws^pTtr^ cn/)^ and the Saturday issue of the New York 

Evening Post, it is the average Sunday 
edition which is most staggering to the stranger. Life once 
perpetrated the following " Ode to a Sunday Newspaper " 
to the accompaniment of three pictures showing how the 
forests of America are fast being destroyed to supply wood- 
pulp for that delectable product. The ode is a complete and 



62 America of the Americans 

authoritative description of the average Sunday newspaper 
and its contents. 

This is the forest primeval ; the murmuring pines and the 

hemlocks, 
Felled by the axe of the woodman (who also hews down the 

spruces) , 
Yell like a band of Comanches, with voices shrill and insistent, 
Yell like suffragettes, who raucously cry for the ballot. 
Loud from his leathern armchair the week-worn pater familias 
Speaks, and in accents peremptory asks for his share of the 

forest. 

This is the forest primeval, ground into wood-pulp and paper ; 
List how the leaves of it rustle like to the oak of Dodona, 
Like to the Sibyline whispers of wonderful things and prophetic. 
Here we may learn how a murder was recently nearly committed 
How a " society lady " is soon to elope with her chauffeur ; 
Here we may see from the pictures — posed by an opera singer — 
How the worn mother of seven may look like her rosiest 

daughter ; 
Nor is the actress forgotten, she who performs in the chorus ; 
Here is her picture resplendent, surely a boost for the drama, 
She and her dog and her motor, and also the duke she will 

marry ; 
Nor are the children neglected, bless their dear little fancies ! 
Pictures for them, that are printed in colours glaring and 

painful. 
Telling cheap stories of mischief such as a drummer might relish. 
But what are these that are falling, tree upon tree of the forest ? 
Can it be ? Yes, it is, surely ! These are the advertisements ! 
Just for a dollar a week you may purchase a villa in Flatbush, 
Furniture's going at cost, and as for the prices of nightgowns — 
Well, you may get a dozen and still buy a cure for consumption. 

This is the forest primeval ; but where are the things worth 

the reading ? 
Lost in the umbrage of headlines, hid in the jungles of drivel ! 
This is the forest primeval ; but where are the streams that 

beneath it 
Gathered to water the plains and the land that gives us our 

foodstuffs ? 
Where are the stretches of verdure that climbed up our noblest 

of mountains. 



The Fourth Estate 63 

Glad'ning our hearts with their beauty and saving the soil for 

our children ? 
Here lies the forest primeval, scattered and torn on the carpet ; 
\Miile from his leathern armchair the week-worn pater familias 
Snores, and in somnolent accents shows what he thinks of the 

business. 

Since that impeachment was published some four years 
ago, however, one department of the Sunday newspaper, the 
comic supplement for children, has been made the object of 
so earnest a campaign that many newspapers have eliminated 
the section. Nor should it be overlooked that one newspaper 
in most of the large cities gives with its Sunday issue a copy of 
that admirable weekly magazine issued by the Associate Sun- 
day Magazine syndicate, a production which does honour to its 
editors, and should do much to counteract the pernicious 
influence of the bulk of the newspaper with which it is issued. 

Inasmuch as the average American daily concentrates all 

its resources on excelHng its rivals in the production of a 

thriUing " story," it follows that most of 

Organisation ^j^^gni have a family likeness. This is not to 
ignore the fact that the staff of a prominent 
daily is organised on a more detailed plan and is more numer- 
ously manned than on a London daily. In most cases the 
proprietor assumes the duties of editor-in-chief, though he 
may designate himself the " pubHsher," while the next in 
authority, the associate-editor, is usually responsible for no 
more than the editorial page. The other grades of the staff 
range through the day city-editor, the managing-editor, the 
night city-editor, the dramatic and musical and hterary 
and sporting and financial editors, the re-writers, the copy- 
readers, and the reporters. While all newspapers of any 
standing devote considerable space to dramatic and musical 
and literary matters on certain days of the week, the city-room 
staff bend all their energies towards a liberal supply of that 
" good story " element which is so conspicuous a feature 
of the average American daily. 

On rare occasions a political event, such as a national 



64 America of the Americans 

convention or a party split, will provide a front-page feature, 
but on the majority of days that prominent position is 

reserved for the most startling " story " of the 
^^FeaUire^ " ^°^^- ^ divorce in " society," or a breach of 

promise case in which the plaintiff is a " woman 
of colour," or the thrashing of a fickle lover by the father of 
the jilted girl, or a murder or " near-murder " case, or a 
railway accident with great loss of life— these are the type of 
news items which are " played up " by the full ingenuity, 
word-phrasing, picture-displaying gifts of the city-room 
staff. Actual importance of an event weighs but httle com- 
pared with its possibilities of melodramatic treatment. This 
tendency helps to explain why to the ordinary English reader 
so much of the contents of an average American daily has a 
trivial or provincial aspect. Americans are wont to complain 
of London newspapers that they " have no news " ; what 
they miss is the t5rpe of paragraph which expatiates upon the 
silver weddings of inconspicuous people, etc. They miss, 
too, those graphic, large-typed headlines by which the copy- 
readers of American newspapers often convey a greater thrill 
than the " story " itself. Of foreign news in the English 
meaning of the term, or international politics, there is a great 
sparsity in most American dailies. And even those journals 
which do speciaHse in London letters are wont to confine 
themselves to a one-sided type of article. In pohtical matters, 
for example, the London correspondence of such newspapers 
is nearly always written with a Liberal bias, owing, no doubt, 
to the fear of giving offence to the " Irish vote." That factor 
also helps to explain why some American papers are unfriendly 
towards England. 

Within its own special category the American daily is an 
arresting and deeply interesting production. Its headlines 

are often models of epigrammatic force, its 
and°C°artoons "^^^e-up is startling, and as a general rule its 

wealth of pictorial embellishment is such as 
helps to explain the comparative absence of the illustrated 



The Fourth Estate 65 

weekly. All the principal dailies have a large staff of photo- 
graphers and a fully-equipped process department ; and not 
a few are notable for the ability of their cartoons. Wallace 
Goldsmith of the Boston Glohe and J. T. McCutcheon of the 
Chicago Tribune have a national reputation for the force, 
humour, and craftsmanship of their cartoons. 

Although there are exceptions, the daily newspaper counts 
for more as a newspaper than as an editorial force. The 
sceptre is passing from the leader-writer to the city-editor. 
That is, news is presented in so forceful a manner that its 
influence for good or evil is more potent than the leading 
article. Hence the average American does not cherish that 
devotion to a party organ which is so common in England. 
He is avid for news ; he gets his politics in ward meetings 
and conventions. 

But there are many journals of pohtical, hterary, and 

economic influence, which, however, are mostly confined to 

the weeklies. Such a journal was Harper's 

^Weeklles"^ T^^^/^/y while it remained under the energetic 
direction of Colonel George Harvey ; another 
of the same type is Collier's Weekly, which has conducted 
many successful campaigns against political and commercial 
corruption. In the sphere of hterary criticism, the Nation 
and the bi-monthly Dial of Chicago maintain a high standard 
and share equally the high distinction of proving that a suc- 
cessful literary periodical is not dependent upon illustrations. 
Although much of the contents of the Nation is " hfted " 
from the Evening Post, many of the literary appreciations of 
I its accomphshed editor, Paul Elmer More, have been written 
specially for its columns ; while the Dial has demonstrated 
for more than a generation how a periodical can live by litera- 
ture alone. The religious or semi-religious weeklies, such as 
the Outlook and the Independent, with their monthly magazine 
issues, are of a high class, and even such distinctively denom- 
inational organs as the Congregationalist and the admirably- 
edited Presbyterian Continent have a far wider audience than 

5— (2393A) 



66 America of llie Americans 

the usual type of religious weekly. The Literary Digest stands 
in a class bj^ itself as a kind of weekly Review of Reviews. 
It contains much excellent original matter, but its chief 
\'ahie consists in its concise presentation of the events and 
discussions of the hour. 

As an organ of political opinion, the Argonaut of San 
Francisco has a unique position. Although its circulation 

may not be counted in the hundreds of 
, ^^^ ,, thousands it is world-wide. When its files 

were destroyed in the great fire and an 
appeal was made to its readers to supply the loss, sets of back 
numbers from the earliest to the latest issue were forwarded 
from, among other places, Japan and South Africa. It was 
founded by and received its pecuHai- individuality from Frank 
Pixley, a journalist of many rare gifts, but its high traditions 
of clarity and fearlessness of political exposition are fully 
maintained by its present proprietor and editor, Alfred 
Holman, who, notwithstanding a tinge of that delightful con- 
fidence which is characteristic of the Pacific Coast, brings to 
his weekly comment on federal or State affairs a sanity of 
judgment and a forcefulness of expression which give him 
prominent rank among the first half-dozen leaders of political 
thought. Unfortunately, however, the Argonaut has no 
authority in international politics, for in addition to its com- 
ments on such matters betraying a lamentable ignorance of 
fundamental principles it frequently commits itself to 
statements which are absolutely false. 

Although by the majority of its numerous readers Life 

would probably be classified as a comic weekly, it is perh.ips 

u T -r >> ^he greatest journalistic power in the United 

States. Its proper classification is in the 
poHtico-humorous categor5^ for beneath the contagious 
fun of every issue there runs an undercurrent of high 
purpose. Its claim to be " with one exception " (is the 
Argonaut that exception ?) the " onh' free and independent 
journal in America," is supported by the unique impartiality I 



The Fourth Estate 67 

of its attacks on all enemies of the commonwealth, no matter 
whether they be powerful politicians, wealthy trusts, sup- 
porters of vivisection, advocates of a noisy and murderous 
" glorious Fourth," Irish ward bosses, millionaires, dramatic 
magnates, et hoc genus omne. To glance over the back 
numbers of a single year is to grow bewildered at the fertility 
of its cover designs, the compelling humour of its pictures 
and jokes, the grim tenacity of its assaults on evil-doers, the 
sanity of its dramatic and the sympathy of its literary criti- 
cisms. In short, it may be doubted whether there is another 
journal so representative of the best qualities of the United 
States as Life. 

Notwithstanding the rather serious mortahty of recent 
years, American magazines are still numerous and of great 
variety. The " popular " type is well repre- 
Magazines rented by such favourite pubhcations as the 
Cosmopolitan, the American Magazine, Mun- 
sey's Magazine, McClure's Monthly, and the Smart Set, while 
the higher-grade monthlies include the three which have a 
world-wide renown : Harper's Magazine, the Century, and 
Scribner's Magazine. Although the last-named is a com- 
paratively new-comer in this field, it revives a title famous 
in the annals of American magazines, and has a rightful share 
in the glory of the other two. These magazines have been 
the medium of first giving to the world many books which 
have since taken rank as classics, while to poetry, art, econo- 
mics, national development, liberal religion and many other 
I phases of intellectual and social activity they have ever 
I extended a generous hospitality. Their services in the realm 
I of art have been particularly distinguished, giving an enor- 
1 mous impetus to native talent and laying the foundation 
1 for that pre-eminence in the pictorial field which America 
1 enjoys to-day. They have promoted national unity and 
' opposed every phase of sectionahsm. Their pages have been 
j as open to the South as to the North ; the worthy achieve- 
ments of all States have found generous record in their 



68 America of the Americans 

pages ; no writer has been refused a hearing provided he had 
something of moment to say or could embody imaginative 
dreams in adequate verse or prose. And they have ever 
been sufficiently eclectic to welcome the contributions of 
ahen writers. It may be questioned, indeed, whether there 
is any other country in the world which can boast three 
magazines of equal merit, as distinguished for their pictorial 
quality, their hterary standing, or the cultural influence of 
their contents. 



CHAPTER V 

LITERATURE 

Nearly a hundred years have passed since Sydney Smith 
asked his famous question : " Who reads an American book ?" 
That query is still frequently remembered to the detriment of 
the witty divine, although there are Americans who admit 
that the interrogation " conveyed simply the statement of a 
fact." It is generally forgotten, for example, that five years 
after the Canon of St. Paul's had asked his question so 
patriotic an American as William EUery Channing admitted 
I that America did not possess a national hterature, that there 
I was nowhere, in short, what he called a " literary atmo- 
1 sphere." Moreover, in 1837, when Sydney Smith's question 
was nearly twenty years old, Emerson was chiding his coun- 
trymen with having listened for too long to the " courtly 
'muses of Europe," and proclaiming that their long day of 
apprenticeship to the learning of other lands was drawing 
^to a close. There were extenuating circumstances for the 
'condition so tersely defined by Sydney Smith : not only were 
f,the inhabitants of the United States prohibited from writing 
an epic by the more serious pre-occupation of living it, but 
besides being the inheritors of " five centuries' load of classics," 
Ithe absence of copyright between the mother and daughter 
lands effectually repressed the native author. 

But what are the conditions to-day ? In its total of annual 
book production America is forging ahead of England. In 
1914, for example, some 12,000 volumes were 
Stftisto published in the United States, while for 
several years past the propoition of English- 
)roduced works has shown a tendency to decrease. In 1908 
)Ut of the 9,254 books pubhshed in America, 5,349 were by 



70 America of the Americans 

native authors, whereas in 1909 out of the 10,901 titles no 
fewer than 8,308 were credited to American writers. This 
change is still more pertinently illustrated by the diminishing 
number of Enghsh books which are set up in type in the 
United States to secure copyright protection, for while there 
were 1,145 foreign books actually reprinted in 1908, the 
number had fallen to 828 in the following year. It should be 
remembered, too, that books by American authors are year 
by year increasing in numbers on English publishers' hsts. 
In short, if Sydney Smith were with us to-day his question 
would have to take the different form of " Who does not read 
an American book ? " 

Whether Americans in the mass are conscious of the 
possession of a hterature is another question. According to 

the popular vote, they are not. About a 
^LiteraSre^" ^^^^ ^^^ ^ leading periodical asked its readers 

to vote upon the question : If Congress 
were to award ten prizes to those men and women who 
deserved best of the country, and left the choice to the people, 
who would get the largest number of votes ? More than a 
thousand readers responded to the invitation, but when their 
votes were tabulated it was discovered that not a single poet 
or novelist had received sufficient marks to bring him any- 
where near the first ten. If, however, the vox populi takes 
no account of an American literature, largely, perhaps, 
because it is not practical, there is no gainsaying the conten- 
tion of WiUiam Dean Howells that an American Hterature as 
distinctive as its journahsm has been evolved since the Civil 
War, a literature which is of the West and South as well as 
of the North and East. " Once," as Mr. Howells claims, 
" we had a New England literature, now we have an American 
literature, and Indianapolis is, as Boston was, a city in which 
books are held dear and the art of them is prized above any 
other." 

Several of the names which have been inscribed on the literary 
necrology of the last decade illustrate the transition from a 



Literature 71 

derived and local to a native and federal literature. 
Thomas Bailey Aldrich and Edmund Clarence Stedman 

and Charles Eliot Norton, for example, were 

Writers of the among the last links with the New England 

Period. school ; each was a native of that region, 

and if Stedman took some colour from his 
New York environment and Aldrich aimed at a cosmopolitan 
reputation by his mastery of technique, it remains true 
that there were more of the Boston than any other camp. 
That is to say, while not neglecting to pay tribute to the New 
England traditions, they also preserved the connection with 
the spirit and form of classical and English literature. In 
Stedman's graceful verse the classification includes, in addition 
to poems of Manhattan and the Civil War and New England, 
a specific number of " Poems of Greece," while other verse 
betrays the influence of Shelley and Tennyson and Keats. 
In its bulk, too, the work of Aldrich, whether in fiction or 
verse, savoured principally of the author's native New Eng- 
land. On the other hand, the scholarly writings of Norton 
accentuated the old Bostonian association with European 
classics, for, apart from his famous friendships with Carlyle 
and Ruskin, he will probably be best remembered for his 
Dante studies. 

But if the names of Aldrich and Stedman and Norton in 
the obituary of the last decade are representative of the era 

when American literature was regional or 

The " Great derived, that list of the recent-dead also 

Novel." contains several names which are symbolical 

of a national and original literature. In one 
particular, however, this distinction may be easily carried 
too far. One of the current jokes of the United States is 
made at the expense of those literary editors and dramatic 
critics who every year hail the advent of the " great American 
novel " or the " great American play." In the sense in which 
smaller and more homogeneous nations possess a distinctively 
national novel or play America cannot hope to ever number 



72 America of the Americans 

such works in her literature. Uncle Tom's Cabin is sometimes 
loosely described as the " great American novel," but such 
a judgment at once betrays its Northern origin ; in the South 
that verdict would be hotly repudiated. The factors which 
prevent a periodical from having a national circulation must 
always militate against a novel having a national quality 
in the strict meaning of the term. New England has its great 
novel in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, and time will no doubt 
evolve for other sections of the country one supreme piece 
of representative fiction. 

Yet in a narrower sense the work of Joel Chandler Harris 
and Mark Twain is distinctively American. It is not merely 
that the " Uncle Remus " of the former is 
TwSn pre-eminently an American creation, but 

that his tales of negro folk-lore are also 
indigenous to the soil. On a still wider plane the work of 
Mark Twain is typically American. This is realised outside 
the United States, for if a European were asked to name a 
hterary man embodying the American type for him he would 
in nine cases out of ten answer, " Mark Twain." It is true 
that that humorist once declared that " there isn't a single 
human characteristic that can be safely labelled ' American,' " 
yet he would have been the first to admit that he himself 
could not claim to be an Englishman. His character and 
writings are the best answer to his own statement. And it 
was his good fortune in not having been sent to a university 
which made him a distinct product of his native land. His 
Mississippi days, his adventures in the West, plus his experi- 
ences of the more settled districts of America all played their 
part in making him the exponent of democracy. 

Among hving writers it is a happy circumstance that 
the recognised Dean of American letters, WiUiam D. Howells, 
is so representative of several phases of his 
Howdls country's literature. Even in the less impor- 
tant matter of his personal biography he is 
typical of his native land. He is a " self-made " man. He 










WILLIAM D. HOWELLS AT HIS COUNTRY HOME 



Literature 73 

owes nothing to inherited wealth or university training. The 
son of a printer, in whose work-room while still a mere lad he 
learned to put his own juvenile verses into type, his education 
was confined to the limitations of a country-town school and 
his father's library. In his fourteenth year disaster overtook 
the family fortunes, compelHng him to seek employment as a 
compositor for the meagre wage of four dollars a week. From 
the composing-room he progressed to the reportorial and then 
to the editorial department, and in 1860 made his first venture 
as an author in conjunction with a colleague who shared the 
responsibility of Poems of Two Friends. By a stroke of good 
fortune he was commissioned to write the campaign life of 
Abraham Lincoln, which netted him the immediate pecuniary 
reward of $160 (£32) and a prospective office under the spoils 
system. In 1861 that reversion took the form of an appoint- 
ment as consul at Venice, where he remained for four years, 
devoting all his spare time to the study of the ItaUan language 
and literature. On returning to his native land he, after a 
brief spell as editorial writer on the Nation, became associated 
with the Atlantic Monthly, to the editorship of which he 
succeeded in 1872. Nine years later he severed his connection 
with the editorial desk to devote himself more entirely to 
original work. 

Apart from his share in the Poems of Two Friends, which 
finks him with so many of his countrymen in their spasmodic 
flirtation of the muses, his bibfiography really begins with 
Venetian Life and Italian Journeys, the forerunners of that 
copious harvest of travel impression which bulks so largely 
in his fife work. For many readers, indeed, the most enjoy- 
able portion of Mr. Howells's work is that in which he has 
garnered his early and late impressions of European travel, 
for in Venetian Life, Certain Delightful English Towns, Seven 
English Cities, and Familiar Spanish Travels he belies his 
creed as a reafist and almost surrenders to the camp of his 
romantic rivals. In his facts he is nearly as omniscient as 
Baedeker, though there are occasional lapses unworthy 



74 America of the Americans 

of a realist ; but in spirit he is wholly admirable, so urbane, 
so sympathetic, so full of allowance for manners and customs 
alien to his temperament. Indeed, the most felicitous hap- 
pening of his life was that consular appointment which took 
him to Europe in his impressional days, for it not only yielded 
a direct result in his topographical books but also stored his 
mind with vivid pictures of settings for his fiction. No 
American writer is more loyal to the attractions of his 
native land than Mr. Howells, yet his appreciation of the 
old world is such that in his later years he is, as a friend 
has gently reminded him, " more distinguished as a tra- 
veller or non-resident, for every time his early friends hear 
of him he is in a new place just going or returning from 
somewhere." 

How thoroughly Mr. Howells's travel experiences have 
entered into his mental make-up is illustrated in his earhest 
and latest novels. No one save a persistent traveller could 
have made so effective a use of Atlantic journeys and European 
experiences as constitute much of the charm of The Lady of 
Aroostook and The Kentons, yet those two novels were separa- 
ted by twenty-three years. But if Mr. Howells cannot resist 
the temptation to utilise his European impressions he is 
faithful to his native land by electing American characters 
as the subjects to receive the pact of those impressions. In 
The Lady of Aroostook, for example, the heroine who crosses 
the Atlantic and revels in the novelty of European sights is 
a New England girl, while in The Kentons the travellers come 
from the novehst's native State of Ohio. No matter, then, 
the setting of the novels, it is the American type with which 
Mr. Howells concerns himself, the individuality of which is 
perhaps more heightened in the European than in the Ameri- 
can novels. Of the latter A Modern Instance and A Hazard 
of New Fortunes are perhaps most typical of his adhesion to 
the realistic school. The latter, which betrays the influence 
of Tolstoi, is an almost harrowing study of economic strife ; 
the former, which was described on its appearance as a book 



Literature 75 

greatly praised but little liked, is a not less distressing study 
of the degeneration of a promising young American. 

Notwithstanding his national reputation, Mr. Howells has 
never broken into the ranks of the " best sellers." The 
nearest approach to such an achievement was made in the 
case of The Kentons, of which its author confesses that it 
" narrowly escaped in its agreeable popularity becoming a 
big seller. But the divinity," he adds, "which has always 
watched over my fortunes, that they should not become too 
gross and swollen, wrought the miracle which kept the sales 
of The Kentons well within the bounds of a modest prosperity." 
Mr. Howells draws the obvious moral. The Kentons is his 
nearest approach to the romantic style ; ergo, his fight for 
reahsm has been a losing campaign. 

Owing to his occupying so influential a pulpit as the 
" Editor's Easy Chair " of Harper's Magazine and to the 
household-word famiharity of his name, many of Mr. Howells' s 
literary opponents have misjudged his influence. Among 
them is Gertrude Atherton, who seven years ago became a 
veritable scold in her tirade against the champion of realism. 
She charged him with never having penetrated deeply into 
Hfe, with being a novehst for boarding-school misses, and 
with having used his influence to cast a blight over American 
fiction. At that time Mrs. Atherton firmly beheved that 
Mr. Howells was solely responsible for the tameness and 
insipidity of American novels. But she would hardly repeat 
her denunciation to-day. For quite recently Mr. Howells 
mounted the penitent's form, and confessed for one thing 
that he is not sure now whether he was quite right in what 
he used to say about the romanticists. Nay, he goes further ; 
he owns that he has waged a losing fight, and that " the 
monstrous rag-baby of romanticism is as firmly in the saddle 
as it was before the joust began, and that it always will be, 
as long as the children of men are childish." His repentance, 
it will be seen, is qualified, for there is yet sufficient confidence 
in his early belief to stigmatise his conqueror as a mere 



76 America of the Americans 

" rag-baby." But in that epithet he has given the game 
away ; to have vanquished so robust a champion as himself 
romanticism must have more vitahty than a rag-doll. He is 
conscious now that his critical attitude and his exposition of 
his faith in his novels have had an adverse influence on the 
sale of his fiction. 

Yet it should be recorded to his honour that in two respects 
his influence has been an invaluable asset for American 
hterature. If he is a realist he has never subscribed to the 
full gospel of that school ; he has stopped, that is, well within 
the bounds of reticent reahsm, never straying into that realm 
of indecency affected by so many exponents of the school. 
And in the quality of friendliness, so characteristic of his 
nation, Mr. Howells has never failed. The style proclaims 
the man. If realism was to be advocated it has been an 
immense gain that its case should have been put not only 
without temper but with such good temper. The sunny 
spirit, the urbane quality, the lovable point of view which 
have characterised the bulk of Mr. Howells's work are but so 
many aspects of his own charming nature. 

Just as Mr. Howells is a national figure without being a 
" best seller," so the other novehsts of present-day America 
may be roughly classified as having a literary 
, Sellers ^^^ ^^ mercantile reputation. Month by month 
the Bookman reports for the curious of the 
reading world which novels have achieved the distinction 
of reaching the best-selling category, and at the end of each 
year sums up the situation in a series of instructive tables. 
When these tables are compared for two or three years it will 
be found that among those novehsts who enjoy most popular 
favour, though not always in the same ratio, the following 
are fairly certain to secure a place in the first thirty : Winston 
Churchill, Rex Beach, John Fox, F. Hopkinson Smith, Harold 
MacGrath, Louis Vance, George Barr McCutcheon, Robert W. 
Chambers, Robert Herrick, William Allen White, Alice 
Hegan Rice, Mary Johnston, S. Weir Mitchell, James Lane 



Literature 77 

Allen, Alice Brown, Meredith Nicholson, Kale Douglas 
Wiggin, Owen Johnson, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Booth 
Tarkington, Emerson Hough, and Basil King. 

Publishing conditions in the United States help to account 

for this " best-selhng " class. While there are one or two 

houses which make a boast of their ability 

CondituJnf *^ ^^^^^ ^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ "^^^^ selling" 
category, and can support that claim by some 
remarkable achievements, in which adroit advertising plays 
a conspicuous part, it is to be feared that most American 
publishers have succumbed to the national passion for " get- 
ting results." Although there is a notable difference in the 
manner in which they are conducted, the publicity depart- 
ments of publishing houses are organised in a manner which 
would astonish the average non-American book-producer. 
There are still honourable exceptions, firms which take a 
pride in the quality rather than the quantity of fiction they 
produce ; but in the main the commerciaHsation of publishing 
has been carried to excess. Advance notices, anecdotes of 
authors, portraits, photographs of authors' homes and studies, 
are among the least reprehensible of the methods employed 
to " boost " a novel into the " best selling " list. At the 
same time it must be remembered that not a few of those 
fortunate novels fully deserve their success on the score of 
literary merit. 

That there are notable exceptions, however, has been made 
clear in the case of Mr. Howells, and if further proofs are 
needed they are provided by the absentees of the hst quoted 
above. It will be observed, for example, that the names of 
Edith Wharton, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, George W. Cable, 
and Margaret Deland, not to extend the Hst, are missing from 
the " best-selling " galaxy. 

Not that Mrs. Wharton has not been a best seller. She 
has, and may be again. But her audience is not so consis- 
tently loyal as that of, say, Robert W. Chambers or 
Winston Churchill. One reason for this fluctuation of her 



78 America of the Americans 

popularity may be that Mrs. Wharton is adverse to those 
adventitious aids which consist in interviews, personal para- 
graphs, etc. She is sufficient of an artist to 
Wh^^? wish to be judged by her work alone. And 

among educated Americans the judgment of 
that work is very high. Some, indeed, go so far as to proclaim 
her " Novelist -laureate " of their coimtry. This enviable re- 
putation has been won in fifteen years, for her first story, The 
Greater Inclination, was published in 1899. It was not, how- 
ever, until three years later that she compelled unusual 
attention with The Valley of Decision, that study of tempera- 
ment in ItaHan environment as influenced by the French 
Revolution which amazed as much by its learning as by its 
story. To the Italian experiences which influenced that 
novel were due Italian Gardens and Italian Backgrounds, 
volumes which have little more value than further illustrations 
of the American habit of exacting full toll of " copy " from 
European travel. 

It was by The House of Mirth, published in 1905, that 
Mrs. Wharton justified the faith of her admirers and secured 
a national audience. And it is probable that she would be still 
satisfied to be judged by that remarkable novel, or by its 
successor. The Fruit of the Tree, even though the latter has 
the more serious purpose. Mrs. Wharton believes that in 
estimating a novel it is the duty of the critic to consider three 
questions, namely, What has the author tried to represent ? 
how far has he succeeded ? and was the subject worth while ? 
In applying these three questions to The House of Mirth the 
answer to the first is that the theme is concerned with a 
phase of fashionable hfe in New York ; to the second that 
the novelist has produced a life-like picture ; and to the 
third that the subject was important enough to justify its 
treatment. The style of the writing is emphatically Ameri- 
can ; that is, there is a swiftness of manner and an atmosphere 
of wealth characteristic of Fifth Avenue. In none of her 
stories has Mrs. Wharton been more lavish of her ghttering 



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EDITH WHARTON 



Literature 79 

epigrams or her command of striking episode. It is, however, 
the somewhat unrelated nature of the episodes whieli strikes 
many critics as the chief flaw of a remarkable novel ; yet its 
author might justly answer that the life of the typical Fifth 
Avenueite has that quality of disconnection to a supreme 
degree. 

While Mrs. Wharton finds her chief milieu in Fifth Avenue 
and Newport, Mrs. Freeman, who began writing as Mary E. 
Wilkins, has in the main elected to cultivate the more sober 
field of her native New England. Such a story as The Heart's 
Hig/nmy, a tale of colonial Virginia, is the exception that 
proves the rule, and that Mrs. Freeman was no more satisfied 
with the experiment than her readers may be inferred from 
the fact that she has not repeated it. New England is her 
proper sphere, though there are natives of that region who 
protest that her carefully detailed studies of New England 
characters lay too much emphasis upon the narrow, colourless 
aspects of their lives. The objection is well taken : it is not 
merely, as has been complained, that Mrs. Freeman's charac- 
ters are " so common," but that in the bulk they are of a 
repellant hardness. It is her own sex, too, that the novehst 
portrays with the greatest severity, for her women, when not 
wholly selfish, are mostly cast in the Puritan mould. " It 
is," as Henry C. Vedder has said, " a sombre, a terrible New 
England that she discloses, full of unsuspected pathos and 
even tragedy, a New England of warped lives and unwhole- 
some characters and incredible littleness and narrowness, 
a New England in which there is little peace and less happi- 
ness." The last count in this indictment perhaps goes too 
far ; it may easily escape the reader's attention that such 
characters as Susan Adkins and the sisters Alma and Amanda 
really enjoy their misery. In any case, though they may not 
be lovable, the characters of Mrs. Freeman are never unin- 
teresting. If, too, her style is undistinguished, and deficient 
in delicacy or colour, it is never lacking in that strength which 
is essential to its subject matter. 



80 America of the Americans 

In her short stories, and especially in the Old Chester tales, 
Margaret Deland has much afl&nity with Mrs. Freeman ; 

her period, that is, is as old-fashioned, and 
Margaret j^^j. general atmosphere is almost as trying. 

This apparent kinship with the hard realism 
of Mrs. Freeman is in Mrs. Deland 's case largely due to the 
insistence with which she expounds her main thesis of the 
sorrow wrought in the world by human selfishness. The 
Awakening of Helena Richie, for example, is an Old Chester 
short story planned on a larger scale, for its chief object is to 
reveal the havoc caused by Helena's self-centred nature. In 
her later work, such as The Harvest of Fear, the same motif 
is still predominant. Indeed, it may be said that the novel 
which established her fame, John Ward, Preacher, is a variant 
of the same theme, for rehgious fanaticism is but another 
phase of self-indulgence. Of course, the likeness between 
John Ward, Preacher, and Robert Elsmere, the hero in each 
novel being a modem theological martyr, was the theme of 
much debate, but the coincidence was purely accidental, for 
the two stories were pubhshed in the same year. Yet it is 
doubtless true that the discussion aroused by Mrs. Humphry 
Ward's novel contributed not a little to Mrs. Deland's success. 
There was a saving grace, too, in the American writer's effort, 
for despite the seriousness of her theme Mrs. Deland, as in 
all her other stories, suffused her novel with that sunny 
atmosphere which has led her admirers, aware of her passion 
for cultivating jonquils, to declare that she writes with a 
" jon-quill." 

Remembering how firmly established and even inter- 
national his fame is, the absence of George W. Cable from 

the hst of " best sellers " may seem an 
^^CaWe^* astounding omission until it is recalled that 

of late years he has abandoned the role of 
novelist for that of politician. His Creole stories, however, 
are a permanent addition to the Southern literature of his 
native land. Mr. Cable, indeed, is as typical of the South as 



Literature 81 

Hawthorne is of New England. Born in New Orleans, of 
Virginian ancestry, he fought for the South in the Civil War, 
and began his writing career as a casual contributor to a New 
Orleans newspaper. Loss of a commercial position in 1879 
determined him to venture on a literary career, and the 
pubhcation of his Creole stories, contributed to Scribner's 
Magazine, under the title of Old Creole Days, at once justified 
his courage. The large and enthusiastic audience won by 
that book was extended by The Grandissimes, Madame Dcl- 
fhine, and Dr. Sevier, full-length novels in which he showed 
that the command of the dialect tale and the sympathetic 
treatment of Creole life which he had manifested in his short 
stories was equal to the demands of a larger canvas. Of 
all the writers who have drawn their inspiration from the 
South and have attempted the interpretation of that region, 
Mr. Cable is the most distinguished for literary grace and 
wistful humour and pathos. Many of his Southern admirers 
have resented his excursions into the more debatable land 
represented by his The Silent South and The Negro Question, 
obHvious of the fact that his serious studies of the negro 
problem have an intimate relation to his fiction. If, as 
Northerners hold, he is to be honoured for the daring with 
which he has run counter to Southern prejudices, it is equally 
to his praise that he did not avail himself of his popularity 
as a novelist to inundate the reading world with countless 
pot-boilers. He has always respected his public and his art. 
When the list of " best sellers " given above is analysed 
from the standpoint of geography, it will be found that no 
fewer than four of the novelists are natives of 
^^School^"^ the State of Indiana, a fact which gives sup- 
port to Mr. Howells's statement that Indiana- 
polis is a city in which books are held dear and the art of them 
prized above any other. The capital of the Hoosier State, 
indeed, is now prepared to claim supremacy as the literary 
centre of the United States, just as geographically it is the 
centre of population. Many explanations have been offered 

6— '2393A) 



82 America of the Americans 

as to why Indiana produces so many writers, none of them 
more satisfactory than the guesses as to the meaning of the 
adjective " Hoosier " ; but there can be no question that 
Edward Eggleston was the founder of the Hoosier school of 
letters. He, too, was a native of Indiana, and it was his 
manifold experiences as a Methodist circuit rider which stored 
his memory with the impressions he afterwards utiHsed to 
such excellent purpose in The Hoosier Schoolmaster. That 
homespun story, which created so great a sensation in its 
serial form, revealed the fictional possibihties of the West 
and tapped a source of inspiration not yet exhausted. If one 
Hoosier author, Charles Major, has in his When Knighthood 
was in Flower discovered his most fertile field in the England 
of the sixteenth century, others, such as Booth Tarkington 
with his The Gentleman from Indiana, have remained faithful 
to the Hoosier State. In spirit, too, if not always in locality, 
G. B. McCutcheon and Meredith Nicholson and Emerson 
Hough belong to the Hoosier school. In the main the adher- 
ents of that school belong to the romantic rather than the 
reahstic camp, this being markedly the case with Mr. 
Nicholson whose The House of a Thousand Candles and The 
War of the Carolinas are notable for their poetic sentiment. 
Among the popular novehsts who own no allegiance to 
period or locaHty, a distinguished position is occupied by 

Winston Churchill, who is often confused with 
Winston j^-g gj-itish political namesake. Although 
Churchill. , • 1 . r . ^1 • 1 Ti/r /^i- i,-ii 

only m his forty-third year, Mr. Churchill 

has to his credit a series of novels which might worthily stand 
for a life-work, inasmuch as they form a sequential picture 
of American history. Judging from his first important story, 
Richard Carvel, it would seem that Mr. Churchill took 
Thackeray for his model, for that autobiography inevitably 
recalls Henry Esmond, not merely by its style but also by its 
period. Richard Carvel is the starting-point of Mr. Churchill's 
survey of national development, for it deals with the earHest, 
the Revolutionary, period he has yet attempted. Although 



Literature 83 

it did not follow in chronological order, The Crossing comes 
next in point of history, dealing as it does with the Westward 
movement of American hfe at the close of the last phase of the 
Revolution. His intervening novel. The Crisis, was devoted 
to the Civil War days, and set the style of its successor by 
introducing historical characters. Having in The Crisis 
given his view of the causes of the conflict between North and 
South, Mr. Churchill reverted to his own days in Coniston and 
Mr. Crewe's Career, the former being an impeachment of 
railroad interests in State government and the latter a supple- 
mentary picture of political corruption. The novelist did 
not confine his propaganda to fiction ; as a member of the 
New Hampshire legislature he was conspicuous in all reform 
movements, and when he stood for the governorship it was 
as an anti-railroad candidate. His more recent work has 
included A Modern Chronicle and The Inside of the Cup, the 
latter being a kind of American Robert Elsmere type of story 
plus a virile discussion of many social problems. In A Modern 
Chronicle the novelist unburdens himself on the fascinating 
theme of the American woman, whose gospel is summed up 
in the exclamation of the heroine, " You've got to notice me 
once in a while. If you don't I'll get another husband." 
Mr. Churchill may have over-refined his heroine to some 
extent, but he relates the story of her development and her 
successes and failures with consummate skill. And up to 
the present he has kept his audience intact, a rare achieve- 
ment in a country where literary idols are frequently forsaken 
for strange gods. 

Another novelist who has also retained his popularity 

unbroken is Robert W. Chambers. It was not until 1893 

that he abandoned painting for authorship 

Chambe^* with In The Quarter, a lively sketch of his 

studio days in Paris, but since that year his 

literary output has been phenomenal. For a time it seemed 

as though he had determined to execute a whole comedy of 

American history and manners in such native stories as 



84 America of the Americans 

Cardigan, The Maid at Arms, and The Reckoning, but after 
a temporary reversion to the European scene in The Maids 
of Paradise, a repetition of previous efforts, he settled down 
to his present avocation as the romantic chronicler of the 
foibles and vices of the New York smart set. In the matter 
of vivacious dialogue there is no American novelist who can 
compete with Mr. Chambers : dialogue is his medium of 
character revelation, and it is because it is so sprightly that 
he is perhaps the most popular of all native novelists. Gener- 
ally his stories are as wholesome as fresh air ; his heroes and 
heroines are lovers of the type dear to the romantic spirit ; 
but owing to his devotion to the smart set and his determina- 
tion to portray that set faithfully, he is inclining now and 
then to cross that borderline which in the past has been 
carefully avoided in American fiction. 

Mr. Chambers, however, is not alone in succumbing to the 
temptation of that borderline. Until recent years the 
conventional limitations were strictly observed 
^^^\^ by American novehsts. It used to be truth- 
fully said that owing to the pubhc conscience 
they were compelled to work in a limited field ; that they were 
not permitted " to penetrate beyond the bounds of decency." 
Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure, for example, had to be 
expurgated during its publication in Harper s Magazine, and 
so recently as 1907 there was a pretty passage of arms between 
George Moore and his American publishers occasioned by a 
similar problem. But Mr. Moore's conviction that " the day 
of the Bowdlerizer is a brief one " has already been justified, 
for American writers are now venturing to explore those 
regions once monopolised by their French contemporaries. 
It is not improbable that the change has been brought about 
by the success of the imported sex novel. The native writer 
has observed that such productions are allowed entry and 
sale in America ; that they are bought in countless thousands ; 
and has doubtless concluded that such being the case there 
was no reason why he should continue to neglect so profitable 



Literature 85 

a field. But the venture over the borderline has been made 
in the assumed interests of morahty. That is to say, the 
notorious prevalence of divorce in America is held to justify 
such sex novels as Robert Herrick's Together or David Graham 
Phillips's Old Wives for New, while the social evil is urged as 
an excuse for such frank realism as Reginald Kauffman's 
The House of Bondage. Perhaps, too, the influence of Tolstoi 
and translations from the French have been further factors 
in the abandonment of an honoured American tradition. 

Increasing frankness, indeed, is one of the most pronounced 
traits of current fiction. The restrained realism of Mr. Ho wells 

has given place to a freer painting of life ; 
Owen ^Qj. ^Yve moment the selective art is being 

ignored. One pertinent illustration of this 
trend is provided by Owen Johnson's The Salamander, the 
vogue of which actually evolved a new fashion in the " sala- 
mander " costumes. Mr. Johnson takes himself seriously ; 
in his school and university stories he ran full tilt at many 
conventions ; and now he has portrayed the revolutionary or 
investigating girl who, according to his view, can play with 
the fire without getting scorched. He has travelled far since 
he wrote Arrows of the Almighty or In the Name of Liberty, 
and in his journeyings he has capitulated to the influence of 
Balzac, De Maupassant and the Russian reahsts. Yet he 
would probably contend that the point of view of The Sala- 
mander is the same as that of The Varmint, for in that glorifica- 
tion of the lying schoolboy he was as much in revolt against 
the conventional boy story as in his new novel he is opposed 
to the theory that all women must be sentimentalised. It is 
to his credit, at any rate, that just as his Varmint proved 
better than his boyhood promise, so his Salamander " became 
a conventional member of society — rather extreme in her 
conservatism." If all investigating maidens had the self- 
protection habit so strongly developed as Dore they might 
gain from a repetition of her experiences ; but although 
Dore is American to the core she is not a common type. 



86 America of the Americans 

Vigorous as is Mr. Johnson's style, resourceful as he is in 
devising situations, and startling as he is in the twists of his 
plots, it must be confessed that although a first reading of one 
of his stories is an enjoyable occupation, a re-reading is apt to 
pall. As with so many of the most popular novelists, his lack 
of poetry is forgotten during a first perusal but becomes 
painfully obvious on a second. Hence it is not surprising 
to notice from a comparison of the lists of a few years that 
the " best selHng " novel rarely has any sustaining quaUty. 
This helps to account for the changing nature of the " best- 
selling " list. Because a novehst has won a place on that 
roll it does not follow that he will achieve that 
"B^sf^^Tl"* ,, success a second time. Indeed, the recent 
history of American fiction is more notable 
for meteoric triumphs than for a steady win- 
ning and holding of popular favour. Such cases, for example, 
as those of Upton Sinclair, whose exposure of Chicago packing- 
house scandals in The Jungle created so profound a sensation, 
or of Frances Little, whose winsome picture of an American 
woman in Japan in The Lady of the Decoration made a universal 
appeal, illustrate the transient nature of " best-selling " fame. 
There are numerous other authors, too, including Jack Lon- 
don and Rex Beach and James Lane Allen and Basil King, 
whose experiences exemplify the fickleness of public taste. 

On the whole, it is probably true that the leading women 
novehsts — an ever-increasing host — suffer less than the 
men from the mutability of their audience. Mary Johnston, 
for example, and Alice Brown and Kate Douglas Wiggin and 
Alice Hegan Rice can always count upon large sales, largely 
because, for one reason, they are not so prone to overwrite 
their market as the men. Miss Johnston is particularly care- 
ful in that respect, for her average production works out at 
one novel in every two years. On the other hand, one of the 
new-comers, Mary Roberts Rinehart, who specialises in mystery 
stories, is betraying a tendency to emulate the masculine 
standard of output. 



Literature ' 87 

An exhaustive survey of American fiction is impossible 

within the Hmits of such a volume as the present ; even a 

hst of representative names would occupy 

The Return to disproportionate space. It \\dll have been 

Romanticism. ,^^,. ^ .u ^ ^- u 

observed, for example, that no mention has 

been made of the work of Henry James or Frances Hodgson 
Burnett, but that oversight has been intentional, for those 
writers, as in the case of Francis Marion Crawford, have 
virtually exiled themselves from the hterature of their native 
land. If, in a broad view, there is one tendency which more 
than another is characteristic of contemporary fiction in the 
United States it will probably be found in a return to roman- 
ticism. American novehsts are keen to discern the signs of 
the times, and it has not escaped their observation that such 
imported novels as A. S. M. Hutchinson's The Happy Warrior 
and Jeffrey Farnol's The Broad Highway have achieved a 
phenomenal critical as well as popular success. In short, 
Mr. Howells has summed up the situation in his confession 
that the battle between reahsm and romance has ended in the 
defeat of the former. Nor is that fact to be regretted ; for 
if it is true that the supreme test of fiction is its power to 
influence character there can be no question that in the sphere 
of conduct the romantic novel is more potent for good than the 
realistic story inasmuch as it is more loyal to ideahsm. 

Seeing that the poet as well as the novelist works in the 
reahn of the imagination, and remembering how brave a 
showing fiction makes in American Hterature, 
Poetry. it might be expected that the poets would 
also be numerous and their verse a consider- 
able asset in national letters. Such is not the case. Compared 
with the New England era, the singing voice of America is 
dumb. This is fully admitted by two such competent 
authorities as George E. Woodberry and Wilham D. Howells. 
" The poetic impulse is imperceptible," is the testimony of the 
former ; while Mr. Howells, after praising the golden age of 
Longfellow and Bryant and Whittier and Lowell, asks : " Has 



88 America of the Americans 

the real frightened the ideal from us ? Is poetry so essentially 
of the ideal that it must go into exile with it ? Or is it that 
our poetry is not equal to the claim which humanit}^ has upon 
America beyond all other lands and shrinks from a duty which 
should be her solemn joy ? They who dreamed that beautiful 
dream in other days were each at some moment realists in 
their lives as they were idealists in their art. Each according 
to his gift laid his offering on the altar of freedom ; but has 
each of our later poets, according to his gift, laid his offering 
on the altar of justice ? " The impHed answer is in the 
negative. 

One of the most curious facts in American hterary history, 
to which there is probably no parallel, is that the great 
Republic has never yet had a poet who was all poet in the 
sense that Wordsworth or Tennyson or Browning was. 
Bryant, for example, was an editor on active duty for half 
a century ; Longfellow devoted more than a quarter of a 
century to university professorship ; Lowell divided his 
energies between editorial, professorial and ambassadorial 
duties. The type of poet, in short, who consecrates himself 
to the muse from earl}' manhood and spends all his years in 
her service, is unknown to America. Poetry, with even the 
most tuneful of her sons and daughters, has been but a part, 
not the whole, of devotion to letters. 

And that condition still obtains. Publishers' Hsts show 
that most of the leading novelists, from ]\Ir. Ho wells down- 
wards, have one or more volumes of verse to their credit, the 
women wTiters being specially distinguished for this di\ided 
allegiance. If, by way of illustration, an examination is made 
of the catalogue of such a representative house as the Houghton 
IMifflin Company it will be found that volumes of poetry are 
included among the writings of Alice Brown. Margaret Deland, 
Mary Johnston, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Many, too, 
have \mtten a considerable amount of occasional A'erse 
which has not been harvested in book form. One explanation 
of such poetic industry among those whose chief labours are 



Literature 89 

in the field of fiction is provided by the necessities of the 
countless magazines. In the making up of those periodicals 
month by month editors are regularly faced by the problem 
of filling in small spaces at the end of short stories, travel 
articles, or essays, and a too liberal use of colophons has a 
heavy appearance. Hence the market for poetic " fillers." 
The writer, it has been said, who can express his diluted Httle 
drop of thought in one verse of from four to six lines is the poet 
who can best count upon disposing of his wares. Of course, 
some of the magazines, such as the Atlantic Monthly, set a high 
standard for these colophonic substitutes, but the empty 
spaces are so clamorous that quahty has sometimes to be 
sacrificed to necessity. 

Happily enough, in one respect, this demand for condensed 
verse coincides with what may be called the unsustained 
nature of the American muse. In the main it is better fitted 
to take " short swallow flights " of song than a protracted 
voyage in the aerial regions of imagination. Perhaps this is 
an effect of the American temperament : what can be accom- 
plished swiftly has a stronger appeal than a task which entails 
protracted labour. Perhaps, too, the fact that short poems 
are saleable while epics are a drug in the market may afford 
another explanation. Certain it is, however, that most of 
the volumes of verse published during recent years have 
represented the harvests of magazine contributions. 

But there are honourable exceptions. And among them a 

high place is occupied by Kate Nichols Trask's dramatic 

poem, King Alfred's Jewel, the blank verse 

Mrs. Trask. of which reveals an easy command of that 
metre. On the score of scholarship alone 
this poem is a notable achievement, but still more remarkable 
is the facile manner in which Mrs. Trask holds her learning 
in solution. Notwithstanding the temptation of her theme, 
there is no parade or obtrusion of archaic knowledge ; on 
the contrary, her Anglo-Saxon lore colours but does not over- 
load her verse. Highly romantic, too, is the use she makes 



90 America of the Americans 

of the famous jewel to which she is indebted for her title, 
for instead of utilising the theories of antiquarians she invents 
a love motive of her own whereby that costly ornament 
becomes the pledge of Alfred's unchanging affection for his 
wife. Although the old story of the burnt cakes is discarded, 
Mrs. Trask accepts the legend in so far as the King is suc- 
coured by a peasant family, whose lovely daughter, Elfreda, 
is made the occasion of the Queen's jealousy. All through, 
however, the poem is more concerned to portray its hero as 
a man of natural body and of quickening spirit met together, 
and in that high purpose attains a distinguished success. 
That Mrs. Trask should have sought her theme among English 
origins is significant of the fact that much American poetry 
continues the derived inspiration of the New England school. 

Irish-American poets, of whom there are many, contribute 

little to the distinctive verse of their adopted land. They 

may bind the shield of the United States to 

Irish- ^j^g Harp of Erin, but the Stars and Stripes 

Poets. ^^^ secondary to the harp. Their muse is 

Celticism in exile. Denis A. McCarthy's 

Voices from Erin, for example, is pointedly dedicated to 

" all who in their love for the new land have not forgotten 

the old," and the burden of those " Voices," as of so much 

Irish-American verse, is a wistful yearning for the day of 

return and a grave in Erin's green sod. 

Sometimes a publisher, greatly daring, will announce to 
the world that he is the sponsor of a singer who is assured of 
immortality in American hterature. Such a fanfare heralded 
the publication of Bingham T. Wilson's The Hypocrite, which 
was acclaimed as the " output of genius," and declared to be 
richer in " beautiful poetic descriptions " than any other 
poem in the Enghsh language ! It may be admitted that 
Mr. Wilson's attempt to impeach in heroic couplets the 
misalliance of Beauty with rich and licentious Age is a creditable 
piece of work, but its offences against taste and its violations 
of poetic canons are too numerous to allow it to be regarded 



Literature 91 

as great poetry. Such flaws, indeed, are inherent in much 
American poetry. 

Perfection of form, however, an abiUty to embody a worthy 
idea in fehcitous expression, is not lacking. Such a choice 
httle volume as the Semitones of A.A.C., for example, is a 
pertinent illustration that not all the wealth of America has 
sterilised the poetic spirit, for the modest author of those 
dehcately wrought verses is a prosperous captain of commerce, 
who has kept the lamp of culture brightly burning amid the 
boisterous winds of the market-place. 

Still more distinguished for its evidence of learning, its 

knowledge of the choicest models, its unerring taste, and an 

ability to enshrine a poetic thought in inevita- 

^f h^-^t ^^^ lines, is Edward Gilchrist's Tiles from a 

Porcelain Tower. Spirited translations from 

the Greek Anthology and from the Danish and Russian and 

Chinese attest the poet's scholarship, and his command of 

widely varied metres bears evidence of his close study of the 

best poets. Perhaps it is in the sonnet form, that surest test 

of poetic power, that Mr. Gilchrist most approves his gifts. 

The sequence entitled " In a Mountain Lamasery " captures 

the soul of Buddhism, while " The Porcelain Tower " is a 

felicitous example of the perfect expression of a single wave 

of emotion. 

The tower is fallen : only brick and shard 

Of rubble-heap show where it used to rise ; 
The earth with many a painted tile is starr'd 

That fiash'd of yore the hue of sunset skies. 
No more the bells make music from the eaves 

That gently upward from each story curl'd ; 
No more the careless traveller believes 

This was among the wonders of the world. 
The thickets push above it and the weeds 

Hide with rank blossoms the encaustic flowers 
Of porcelain ; the woolly tufted reeds 

Nod drowsily thro' the long summer hours. 
The tower is fallen : shatter 'd is the clay 
That was the pride and symbol of Cathay. 



92 America of the Americans 

If most of the poets mentioned above continue in theme and 
treatment the EngHsh rather than the American tradition, 
it must not be imagined there is a total lack 
J. G. Neihardt Qf singers who are striving to foster a more 
G. S. Viereck. national muse. Two examples to the con- 
trary are afforded by John G. Neihardt and 
George S. Viereck in such volumes as Man-Song and Nineveh 
and Other Poems. Of these poets, Mr. Neihardt is the more 
strictly American product, for Mr. Viereck is of half-German 
parentage and has been more influenced by foreign models 
than the author of Man-Song. Even Mr. Neihardt, however, 
is not unresponsive to foreign models, for while his " A Vision 
of Woman " links him with the pre-Raphaehte school, his 
" The Passing of the Lion " is indebted to Plutarchian bio- 
graphy. Yet if the former poem is a variant of Rossetti's 
" Jenny," it must be added that Mr. Neihardt pays tribute 
to the democratic tradition of America by divining the eternal 
Womanhness in the person of his fallen heroine. To him, 
indeed, although sullied by vice, she becomes the type of love's 
awakener. In other verses he betrays the influence of Walt 
Whitman without succumbing to that poet's rhymeless form, 
an indebtedness foreign to his earlier volume, A Bundle of 
Myrrh, which was remarkable for its faithful picture of West- 
ern life in close contact with nature. As a younger singer — 
he is not yet thirty — Mr. Viereck must be judged more by his 
promise than his accomphshment. Thus far he has been in 
bondage to Heine and Swinburne and Baudelaire, and has 
surrendered himself too unreservedly to erotic fancy. Such 
arresting poems, however, as " The Haunted House " and 
" Aiogyne " reveal the qualities of the true poet, while his 
metrical experiments are always interesting even when they 
are not convincing. In fine he gives excellent promise of 
becoming an effective poetic exponent of the newer thought 
of his age. 

Whether, however, he or Mr. Neihardt or any other poet 
will capture the popular ear as Longfellow did seems to admit 



Literature 93 

)f but one answer. In fact, America has had only one poet 

aureate by grace of the people's election, for since Longfellow 

he RepubHc has never possessed a poet whose verse has been 

io familiar that the sudden sight of his bust in Westminster 

Vbbey would give the travelhng American just that heimweh 

hrill which the Poets' Corner eihgy of the author of " The 

^salm of Life " has awakened in so many ol his fellow- 

;ountrymen. In the matter of poetry, in short, as may be 

nf erred from the fact that American criticism concerns 

tself almost exclusively with English poets, the heritage of 

he older literature has proved a far greater obstacle to original 

vriting than in the realm of fiction. 

Just as recent verse cannot compare with the harvest of 

:he New England poets in either bulk or workmanship, so the 

last decade has disclosed a falling-off in his- 

Historical torical literature. Prescott and Motley and 

Literature. ^ , .11 at -.. 

Parkman have had no successors. Nay, it 

vould be difficult to name a writer who can be compared with 

fohn Fiske, for although Sydney G. Fisher has in his The 

'Struggle for American Independence attempted to correct that 

listorian his effort is nothing more than a well-intentioned 

ailure. Mr. Fisher's style has no affinity with the colour and 

hythm of that of the great historians, and although he makes 

I generous parade of authorities he sometimes misreads them 

md nearly always fails to fuse his sources with his own text. 

Dn the occasions when he attempts a picturesque allusion, 

lis printers sometimes conspire to ruin the effect, as where 

lis comparison of Franklin's arrival in Paris to an incident in 

m Eastern tale is printed as having been " like a scene from 

the Arabian Knights." 

If, however, there is a dearth of historians of such inter- 

[lational fame as Prescott and Motley and Parkman, who, 

it must be remembered, had the advantage of dealing with 

nations and periods of world-wide interest, it would be a 

serious omission to ignore the great body of work in purely 

American history which has been accomphshed in recent years. 



94 America of the Americans 

Such labours are all the more honourable to the writers in 
question because by undertaking them they must have known 
they were giving hostages to their fame, inasmuch as extra- 
American interest in purely American history is a negligent 
quantity. Among the many notable works of this class 
perhaps the highest place has been attained by President 
Woodrow Wilson's History of the American People, a study in 
the manner of J. R. Green's History of the English People, 
and not unworthy of a niche beside that classic. Individual 
States have also found their competent historians, while 
specific districts have been made the theme of such intimate 
and affectionate volumes as Thomas Nelson Page's The Old 
Dominion. Nor has local history been unexplored, for volumes 
akin to WilHam Dana Orcutt's picturesque Good Old Dor- 
chester, a faithful and loving chronicle of that town's annals 
from 1630 to 1893, are beyond count. That, also, the more 
antiquarian side of history is not neglected is obvious from the 
innumerable volumes of the Register and Proceedings of such 
active bodies as the New England Historic Genealogical 
Society, the American Antiquarian Society, etc. 

While in poetry and history a comparison with the past is 
hardly complimentary to the present, the balance is readjusted 

by the literature of travel. That is to say, 
L*te atu^ the impetus given to such writing by Irving's 

Sketch Book and Hawthorne's Our Old Home 
is not yet exhausted, even though a slackening tendency is 
observable. In books of this type the American writer is 
usually at his best. The appeal of the Old World may not 
be quite so novel to him as it was to Irving ; the dilution of 
the Enghsh strain in American blood produces an inevitable 
weakening of interest ; yet to this day England and Italy 
an^l France in that order of importance still constitute the 
chief themes of the travel hterature of the United States. 
It has already been noted that Mr. Howells's urbane quahties 
are most in evidence in his records of English exploration, 
while William Winter's Shakespeare's England and many of the 



Literature 95 

nost delightful of John Burroughs's essays are suffused with 
hat tender sentiment which is characteristic of American 
injoyment of English scenes. The Irving tradition has been 
ontinued by AHce Brown in her By Oak and Thorn, by Anne 
Varner in her Seeing England with Uncle John, and by 
ountless other travellers who have been as enthusiastic and 
riendly as Irving or Mr. Howells.. If the writers who have 
elebrated the charms of Italy and France and other European 
ands display a less intimate appreciation of their subjects, 
hey make amends by the ardour of their homage at the shrine 
if art. During the past decade, too, the American Hterary 
raveller has wandered further afield, a truancy which has 
)roduced such racy books as Henry A. Franck's A Vagabond 
^ourney Around the World, and such scholarly contributions 
o geographical knowledge as A. V. Williams Jackson's 
'^ersia : Past and Present. Nor should it be forgotten that 
lighly important reports of classical excavation are issued from 
ime to time by the American Schools of Classical Studies at 
iome and Athens. 

As American joumahsm is responsible for the interview, 
t is not surprising that biography bulks so largely in the 

book statistics of the United States. Nor, 
Biography. given the national predilection for personaHa, 

is it other than natural that too many of the 
ome 500 memoirs pubhshed every season are of ephemeral 
r purely national interest. The lives of Senators and other 
lolitical leaders are rarely contributions to literature, and 
ven the biographies of the Presidents, with such exceptions 
s Owen Wister's The Seven Ages of Washington and John G. 
Ticolay and John Hay's Abraham Lincoln, are little more 
han post-campaign eulogies. In literary biography, however, 
luch distinguished work has been accomplished during the 
>ast decade, for if such " meaty " books as the Life, Letters 
nd Journals of George Ticknor are of rare occurrence, Eliza- 
leth Bisland's The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn is a work 
f singular charm in its writing and of abiding interest in its 



96 America of the Americans 

subject matter. An ideal literary biography, too, is Ferris 
Greenslet's The Life of Thomas Bailey Aldrich, a volume 
planned on lines of the severest simplicity, fastidious in its 
workmanship, and respecting the proprieties to an unusual 
degree. Of even greater merit, because, for one reason, their 
subjects offered less opportunity, are George H. Palmer's 
The Life of Alice Freeman Palmer and Margarethe Miiller's 
Carta Wenckebach. Each is an invaluable addition to the 
gallery of American female portraiture, and it is a notable 
fact that both biographies are a part of the history of Wellesley 
College, for Mrs. Palmer was the President of that famous 
institution and Miss Wenckebach was the head of the German 
department. Professor Palmer had the more difBcult task 
as the husband of his subject, but he avoided the numerous 
pitfalls with singular success in dealing with his wife's per- 
sonality and in handhng her pubhc career presented a vivid 
portrait of a rare and richly-endowed character. Miss Miiller's 
biography of her friend and predecessor is distinguished for 
the artistry with which she handles her materials, and the 
felicity with which she writes an ahen language. More recent 
examples of literary memoirs at their best have included the 
Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, an important addition to the 
literary history of the last century. 

Reference has been made to the fact that American literary 
criticism exercises itself primarily with English authors, thus 

perpetuating the example of Lowell, whose 

^^"r^* ^°F most distinguished successors are Paul Elder 

Woodberry. More and George E. Woodberry. In the 

Shelburne Essays of the former, for example, 
although the giants of American letters are not ignored, and 
notwithstanding occasional attention to that Oriental philo- 
sophy with which Mr. More is so familiar, it is English litera- 
ture and Enghsh writers that most occupy the critic's 
attention. Mr. Woodberry is more cosmopolitan in his Great 
Writers, though there again England provides three subjects 
to the one each of Spain, France, and ancient Italy ; but in 



Literature 97 

his The Appreciation of Literature it is English writers to whom 
he most often refers. America is singularly fortunate in the 
possession of two such well-equipped and sympathetic critics, 
for if neither has just that command of illuminating humour 
which Lowell possessed in so large a measure, they are his 
equals in scholarship and perhaps his superiors in judgment. 
Another competent critic is Prosser Hall Frye, although his 
Literary Reviews and Criticisms lacks the urbanity of Mr. 
More's essays. Of wider scope are J. E. Spingarn's A History 
oj Literary Criticism in the Renaissance, Alfred H. Upham's 
The French Influence in English Literature, Martha P. Conant's 
The Oriental Tale in England in the Eighteenth Century, 
Ashley H. Thorndike's Tragedy, and Frank W. Chandler's 
The Literature oj Roguery, volumes which are worthy repre- 
sentatives of the careful research now in active prosecution 
in so many American universities. Allied with these dis- 
cussions of literary problems is the painstaking editing of 
Enghsh texts in which many American scholars have achieved 
an international renown. 

Next to fiction, books deahng with religion or philosophy 

contribute the largest total to the annual statistical table. 

The former vary from extreme expositions 

Hlifosoh""^ of the "New Theology" to arguments in 

favour of the straitest orthodoxy ; the 

latter are most remarkable for the evidence they afford of 

a widespread acceptance of WiUiam James's pragmatical 

leadership. Pragmatism, indeed, whether as expounded by 

Professor James's numerous disciples, or coloured by the 

pronounced individuahty of Josiah Royce, is naturally the 

most popular philosophy of the United States, for its practical 

idealism harmonises with the national temperament. Of 

course it is influencing the religious thought of the country, 

for Americans are as prone as other men to limit truth by 

expediency. 

One other phase of American letters demands a brief allu- 
sion — that phase which may be described as the continuation 

7— (2393A) 



98 America of the Americans 

of the Thoreau tradition. Strange as it may seem to the 
ahen visitor, in whom the flora and fauna awaken no child- 
hood recollections, the American landscape in 
Studies ^^^ ^^^ vnde diversity has called forth a wealth 

of affection among those to whom it is a native 
environment, and no writer has communicated more of that 
affection to his readers than John Burroughs. Unhke Thoreau, 
of whom it has been said that he walked the fields as one who 
was on the alert for some divine apparition, he has little of 
that introspective interpretation of Nature which is common 
to the Wordsworthian school ; but for sheer joy in the beauty 
of the fields, the colour of flowers, the hum of insect life, and 
the singing of birds there are few more delightful open-air 
books than Wake Robin, Winter Sunshine, Locusts and Wild 
Honey, and Pepacton. In his later work, too, Mr. Burroughs 
has attained a large measure of Thoreau's vision of the 
Invisible behind the seen. 

With the exception, a transient exception no doubt, of 
poetry and history, then, American hterature is in a robust 
condition, permeated in all its branches with that freshness 
of outlook characteristic of the nation. Quite recently an 
appeal was made to President Woodrow Wilson to do some- 
thing for the " encouragement or reward of poets and men of 
letters," but the Chief Magistrate might well reply that if the 
poets and men of letters do something for themselves the 
" reward " will inevitably follow. Americans are generous 
book-buyers ; price is no obstacle if their interest is aroused ; 
and with such a vast audience to cater for, it is largely the 
author's fault if his " encouragement " is not adequate. It 
should be remembered, too, that all the leading pubhshing 
houses, such as Charles Scribner's Sons, The Century Company, 
etc., etc., are not only of the highest repute but are experts 
in the arts of book production and book selling. 



CHAPTER VI 

PLAYS AND PLAYERS 

If the early Americans distinguished themselves by their 
opposition to the theatre, as exempHfied by the many edicts 
of Congress against " the exhibitions of shows," their later 
representatives have made amends by a passion for plays and 
players such as can hardly be paralleled in any other land. 
For example, in New York there are fifty high-class theatres 
as compared with the thirty-two of London, while, as an 
example of provincial conditions, it may be sufficient to record 
that Boston has seventeen theatres to Glasgow's six, yet the 
Scottish city has a population exceeding by more than 
200,000 that of the New England capital. Such statistics 
could be multiplied without limit. In all sections of the 
country Americans are confirmed theatre-goers, for even the 
remote towns of the West can always be reckoned upon to 
give generous support for a " one-night stand." 

Naturally, then, theatrical enterprise represents one of 
the most flourishing and profitable activities of the United 

States. If a play succeeds in capturing the 

Rewards of a approval of New York or such cities as 

Success. Chicago or Philadelphia or Boston, thereby 

ensuring more than a local reputation, it will 
often have a run of a full season in the metropolis and then 
continue " on the road " for two seasons more. Notable 
plays do not exhaust the interest of playgoers even in three 
seasons ; such popular pieces as The Music Master, for exam- 
ple, can play several profitable return engagements in all the 
large cities ; while a classic of the people hke Ben Hur or 
The Old Homestead has no limit to its drawing power. It 
follows that where such prizes are possible there are many 
competitors among producers and dramatists, and that 

99 



100 America of the Americans 

condition fully explains why, among so businesslike a people 

as the Americans, theatrical enterprise is as carefully organised 

as any commercial undertaking. 

Nor has that competition been without its good influence. 

For one thing it has assisted in the development of a native 

drama. When the figures for the last decade 

Development a.re examined it is found that whereas ten 
oi 3. Nstive 
Drama. years ago the number of native authors who 

had plays produced in a season fell short of 
forty, for the last season they had increased to sixty- 
nine. And it is interesting to observe that this increased 
representation in serious drama coincides with a marked 
decrease in the number of native composers of musical come- 
dies. This strengthening of American playwriting on its 
higher side has been so gradual as to have almost escaped 
recognition. 

Even Mr. Howells was unaware of the fact until an English 
friend revealed it to him. Here is the confession he made 
two years ago, with his comments on the drama of his native 
land : "I had greatly admired the modern English drama 
with hardly a question of its superiority to ours, but last 
summer, when I was expressing my high sense of it to an 
Enghshman in London, he said, ' Yes, but you know you are 
doing much better things at home,' and though he gave me no 
instances, he set me thinking, and I thought I perceived that 
in their very difference from the English things which I had 
so admired there was that which at least equalled our things 
with theirs. I thought I saw that while the English drama- 
tists painted manners so wonderfully well, ours painted nature 
our everyda}^ American nature, which at the bottom of its 
heart is always human nature. If they did not paint manners 
so well it was perhaps because we had none to paint, or perhaps 
because our customs, which we make do for manners, change 
so rapidly from day to day, from Boston to Pittsburg, from 
to-morrow to the day after ; and from Pittsburg to Oklahoma, 
that the kinematograph alone can catch them. Besides, 



Plays and Players 101 

our drama is still very new. Before the great Civil War 
which fertilised the fields of thought among us, as well as the 
fields of battle with the blood of its sacrifice, we had no drama 
which was essentially American except the wretched stage 
travest}/ of that most essentially American novel. Uncle 
Tom's Cabin. But now already we have a drama which has 
touched our Hfe at many characteristic points, which has 
dealt with our moral and material problems and penetrated 
the psychological regions which it seemed impossible an art 
so objective should reach. Mainly it has been gay as our 
prevental mood is ; mainly it has been honest as our habit 
is in cases where we believe we can afford it ; mainly it has 
been decent and clean and sweet as our average hfe is ; and 
now that Ibsen no longer writes our new plays, I would rather 
take my chance of pleasure and profit with a new American 
play than with any other sort of new play." 

Some allowance for the ardour of a convert must be made 

in estimating the value of that statement, yet so far as 

opportunity for the American dramatist is 

Opportunities concerned Henry Arthur Jones is as optimistic 

A°^ r^an ^^ ^^' Lowells. " In the speech and hfe 

Dramatist. around him," the English dramatist says, " as 

even a foreign visitor may clearly see, there 

is a steady stimulation for the most ambitious of American 

playwrights. In other words, the main concern, the main 

preoccupation of the American dramatist, present or future, 

if there is to be a national drama in America and a drama 

that is literature as well, must be with his own people, their 

thoughts and their speeches, from the great impulses that 

move within them to the minutiae of Hfe and manners that 

the theatre also records." Mr. Jones is envious of the verbal 

material available for the American dramatist, the common 

language of the people, alive with lusty young idioms and the 

hke. 

But of most interest is his phrase — " if there is to be a 
national drama in America." That raises a question of more 



102 America of the Americans 

importance than the commerciaHsation of the theatre which 

so disturbs some critics. Now a national drama naturally 

postulates a nation, and that suggests two 

Conditions of other questions : Is America a nation, and does 
Drama. ^^^ ^^^ cleavage between North and South 
and between the North and South and the 
West present too serious an obstacle to coherent nationality ? 
Than the struggle which had issue in the Civil War the history 
of the world has no record of a more intense conflict of pas- 
sions and fanaticism ; and since that crisis there has grown 
up in the far West a type of life which has little in common 
with that of the North or South. At the present moment, 
then, a drama which shall be faithful to Northern ideals would 
have little appeal to the South ; a play which reflected the 
atmosphere of the South would be uncongenial to the North ; 
and neither the one nor the other could be rehed upon to 
awaken a responsive chord in the West. One of the States, 
Kentucky, has so far recognised this clash of interests as to 
have passed a law prohibiting the performance of plays which 
are " based upon antagonism alleged formerly to exist between 
master and slave," or that excite race prejudice. 

When requested to dehver an address upon this theme 
several years ago the present writer soHcited the opinions of 
some of the leading play^vrights and theatrical producers of 
America, whose views, as they have not been pubhshed 
elsewhere, may be here usefully summarised. The late 
Clyde Fitch, who excelled in the comedy of American manners, 
held that national drama should reflect absolutely and truth- 
fully present-day life and environment, adding that " what is 
done by an American belongs to America." Charles Klein, 
the author of numerous highl}' successful dramas, including 
The Music Master ^ The Lion and the Mouse, and The Third 
Degree, gave his views at greater length. " I should think 
the following essentials constitute a national drama : American 
locale, American subject, American author. The American 
national drama should reflect the customs, attitudes, points 



Plays and Players 103 

of view, and particularly the ethical view-points of Americans, 
in contradistinction to the foreign mental attitudes, for we 
have a far more elevated view of womenkind than have the 
Europeans. The subject of the play need not necessarily 
be ' sex instinct,' but it will be found that the relation of man 
and woman in itself constitutes drama that only requires 
' story ' to set it in motion, as love should be an element, if 
not the element of the play. It is a difficult question to 
answer satisfactorily. National drama is the drama of a 
nation : the national drama of America is development ; 
the rapidly growing gulf between the masses and the classes ; 
sociahsm ; national integrity versus a growing dishonest 
commerciahsm. All this makes drama ; it is nearly always 
the conflict between love and duty, or the conflict between 
the spiritual and material self, or the conflict between the 
instincts and reasoning faculties, with local American 
atmosphere and conditions." 

In essential agreement with Mr. Klein are the views of 
Langdon Mitchell, whose The New York Idea is a wonderfully 
successful example of his theory in practice. " What is really 
essential in a national drama," he holds, " is nothing external, 
nothing outside, for instance, dress and the fleeting manners 
of a decade. The essential thing in the national drama is the 
national spirit, the more or less national point of view. For 
instance, in our own country, we move and breathe and live 
in an atmosphere profoundly un-European, profoundly 
un-English and equally un-Continental. No foreigner can 
realise at a glance, or even in a long time, the abyss of differ- 
ence between the American and the dweller in Europe, even 
though their civihsation be on the same level. Freedom, 
democracy, the decay of sectarian rehgion, the endless oppor- 
tunities of a new country, cHmate and the mixture of race 
have all combined to create a new man, and the new man, 
the American, has a point of view which in its depth is 
thoroughly un-European." At the same time Mr. Mitchell 
would not debar the playwright from such local or temporary 



104 America of the Americans 

material as manners and customs or the slang of a given 
period. 

Between David Belasco and the late William Vaughn 
Moody there was remarkable agreement in that the producer 
and the playwright argued that an endowed theatre was 
essential to the production of a national drama. And 3^et 
Mr. Belasco and Mr. Moody has each demonstrated his 
complete independence of such extraneous assistance. 

Perhaps, too, they were unconvinced by the failure of the 

endowed-theatre experiment in Chicago, and by the similar 

fate of kindred ventures. B37 this time. 

The New however, Mr. Belasco may have changed his 

Theatre . . x • j.x. • ^ Ai, x • • 

Experiment, opmion, for m the mterval the most promismg 

enterprise ever attempted in America has 
ended in disaster. That is to say, the New Theatre experiment 
of New York fared no better than the Chicago attempt to 
establish a non-commercial playhouse. Yet many of the 
conditions were highly favourable. The movement had 
behind it a number of the wealthiest men of New York, who 
subscribed most generously in the hope that the New Theatre 
would render for the American stage a service akin to that 
which the Theatre Fran^ais performs for the stage of France. 
The building, for which a picturesque site facing Central Park 
was secured, was the most costly and elaborate playhouse 
ever erected in America, the interior decorations being 
unusually ornate. Some of the most accompHshed players 
were engaged for the opening season ; great care was exercised 
in the selection of the managing staff ; and the backers of the 
enterprise let it be understood that no mercenary consideration 
as to whether a play was likely to be profitable or the reverse 
was to weigh for one moment in selection or production. Yet 
this brave attempt to win the stage from commerciahsm and 
create a shrine of dramatic art in New York failed so com- 
pletely to attract public support or interest that it had to be 
abandoned. It may have been that the building was too 
large, that its acoustics were wretched, and that it was a 



Plays and Players 105 

mistake to build a theatre in such a remote district ; whatever 
the reason or combination of reasons, the fact remains that 
New York has decided against an endowed theatre. 

Nevertheless an American drama has been evolved and is 
growing in strength and variety every season. As it ante- 
dated the New Theatre, so it has survived that praiseworthy 
experiment. Dates are treacherous things in connection 
with the movement of thought, yet it is undoubtedly true that 
prior to 1860 there was no vestige of a national drama in 
America. Even such a well-known favourite as The Old 
Homestead is a post-war production, while such kindred 
productions as Shore Acres and Sag Harbour date respectively 
from 1892 and 1900. Those three plays, which have much 
affinity to melodrama of the best type, are landmarks in the 
history of American drama, for they are among the earliest 
examples of that faithful picturing of native conditions which 
later dramatists have refined and carried to a much higher 
pitch. 

Both phases are illustrated by the plays of Augustus M. 

Thomas, one of the most proHfic of living playwrights. In his 

early work, such as In Mizzoura and Arizona, 

^"fhomas^' ^^ might have been classified with Denman 
Thompson and James A. Hearne, but in The 
Witching Hour and The Harvest Moon he departed from his 
locahsm to a more national field. The Witching Hour, indeed, 
so far as its theme is concerned, might be placed in the 
category of international drama, for America has no monopoly 
of interest in the phenomena of psychic suggestion ; Mr. 
Thomas, however, gave a truly national twist to his subject 
by illustrating his theme by purely American characters. 
In the sequel to that play, The Harvest Moon, which is con- 
cerned with a practical appHcation of mental suggestion to 
the realm of heredity, Mr. Thomas does introduce a French- 
man — an admirable stage Frenchman — but that is merely by 
way of foil for the American puritan family which he uses 
to adorn his moral. 



106 America of the Americans 

Still more typically American, however, are such plays as 
The Rose of the Rancho, The Girl of the Golden West, The Great 
Divide, The Easiest Way, The New York Idea, 
Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, The Kreutzer 
Sonata, The Round Up, and The Man of the Hour. Of course, 
this hst could be extended almost indefinitely, but to do so 
would hardly enlarge its representative character. 

Much of the charm of The Rose of the Rancho was due to 
that poetic stage management of which David Belasco holds 
the secret, yet for the student of the drama 
'*'^^^^ose i^s chief interest consisted in the adroit 
Rancho." manner in which the alert American tem- 
perament was set in contrast with the 
" to-morrow-will-do " spirit of the Spaniard on the Pacific 
Coast. The opening scene revealed the dreamy lovehness 
of the mission garden at San Juan Bautista, the colour and 
hot sunshine of which, with the drowsy priest in the alcove, 
struck the key-note of Spanish indolence. Even the wheel- 
barrow which passed across the stage squeaked in discord for 
lack of the oihng which laziness was too lazy to attend to. 
There were many other deft touches like that, all helping to 
heighten the impression of the languorous Spanish tempera- 
ment. But had this land of flowers and smihng beauty no 
other parable to teach than that pleasure is the goal of human 
Hfe ? Far from it. " That nasty word ' business ' " fell 
upon some startled ears. For in that lovely rancho an end 
had come to the dolce far niente hfe which had passed so softly 
there. Hot-foot on the heels of the Mexican war swept the 
tide of American invasion, bringing with it many of the evils 
and some of the honour of that " larger destiny " for which 
one spirit, at least, in that garden of flowers was on the alert. 
Of course, the play did not lack the prime motive of drama, 
the passion of love, but even that was handled as a contest 
between a woman's divided allegiance to race and love, thus 
throwing into still greater rehef the contrast between the 
American and Spanish natures. 



Plays and Players 107 

Another American trait, the passion for gambHng, provided 
the theme of The Girl of the Golden West. As the title indi- 
cates, Cahfornia again furnished the geogra- 

"th^V^M^ °^ phical setting, but with the difference that 
West. ' ' instead of a flower-embowered mission garden 
the scene was laid amid the abysmal depths 
of snow-clad cafions. Here the Girl, who owned and ran 
the Polka Saloon, was the sole representative of her sex in 
a rough mining camp, and she is the prize for which the heavi- 
est stakes are hazarded. But the gambling motive was the 
thread which held all the episodes together. Every character, 
even down to Billy the Indian and his squaw, was in thraldom 
to the gambHng spirit. The loadstar of gold had cast its 
spell over all, and the Hkeness was obvious in every man 
who frequented the Polka Saloon, for each was where he was 
because he was taking his chances of attaining wealth without 
giving an honest quid pro quo in return. The Girl herself 
became at last the object of possession and the stake in a poker 
game. She is won by Jack Ranee, the villain of the plot, 
whereas her love had gone out to Dick Johnson, the road-agent, 
who was hated by all in the camp. But there was another 
poker game to be played, for when Dick is caught hiding in the 
Girl's cabin she persuades Jack to play with her for the high 
stake of her lover's life. In that episode the gambling spirit 
received its most vivid illustration, inasmuch as the Girl does 
not hesitate to cheat to secure the triumph upon which she 
had set her heart. Indeed, she was a gambler to the end, for 
while the stoim rages outside her mountain hut and obliterates 
the trail in fast-falhng snow, she determines to risk everything 
on a new path with her hardly- won lover to guide her feet. 

Because of the poetry of the one and the tragedy of the 

other, it is quite probable that The Rose of the Rancho and 

The Girl of the Golden West might be enjoyed 

lyv'd'^^'^^ by an audience unfamiHar with American 

Hte ; but that William Vaughn Moody's 

The Great Divide could be appreciated by any save a native 



108 America of the Americans 

audience is questionable. For something deeper, more \ital 
than geography is imphed by the title of that play ; what 
really is the great di\-ide is no chain of mountains but that 
high wall of temperamental difference whch holds the East 
aloof from the West, sharply separating the peoples of the 
two regions in as profound an antagonism as though they 
were parted by the poles. On the one side stood Ruth 
Jordan, all compact of the East, on whom the burden of the 
difference was to press with the heaviest weight ; on the other 
was Stephen Ghent, the t^'pe of the West, for whom the pro- 
blem was to be equally distressing because his mental equip- 
ment was of the primitive kind. In Stephen were incarnated 
those primitive passions which rise to the surface in most men 
when they are removed from the veneering influence of civil- 
isation ; in Ruth were those romantic ideals and longings 
which siu-ge in the soul of the conventionally-trained woman 
when brought in contact with nature and hirnian life in the 
rough. Slowh' but trenchantly as the drama moves forward 
the more ordered \-iew of life which prevails in older himian 
communities breaks in little by httle on the bewildered mind 
of the primitive man, throwing into relief that soul of good- 
ness in things evil which persists even in imlikely places. All 
this may be placed to the credit of the East, but something 
of that praise is weakened by the non-responsiveness of the 
East to the growing advance of the West. The problem is 
worked out in the terms of the severest test, namely, that of 
love and marriage, and in its total effect The Great Divide 
is so native to American environment that it gives the measure 
of the great loss to American drama occasioned by its author's 
too early death. 

More debatable groimd was occupied by Eugene Walter 
in his The Easiest Way, a frank study of " Tenderloin " life 
for which he had prepared the way by Paid 
" '^Wav^^^^^^ /« Full, another cross-section of sexual rela- 
tions. Mr. Walter has written other plan's, 
but none so characteristic of native conditions as The Easiest 



Plays and Players 109 

Way. For horoiiu> he made choico of a beautiful yt>"ng 
actress w lio luul beeouie the mistress of a wealthy Nt^vv Yorker, 
but at the opeuiui; of the play she, while ou a holiday, had 
fallen in love with an honester but niueh poorer man. As 
her lo\ er re.dises that she cannot be happy without tlu^ 
luxuries whieii her *' friend " has provided in sueh liberal 
measure, he. after receiving her pledge of love and promise 
to ri^turn to a clean lih*. de|>arts for the gold-iields to win a 
fortuni\ Hut the test is too si^vere. On returning to New 
York the heroine ihicis it impossible to secm*e an engagement, 
owing to the inlluence her " friend " exercises in the theatrical 
worUl. and in the end she returns to him as his mistress. 
That is the " easiest way." The j)lay was discussed from 
man\' j^oints of view, but little attempt was made to impeach 
its truthfulness as a picture of American theatrical conditions. 
Nor was it possible to question the faithfulness of its dialogue 
or the skill of its technique. 

Not the irregular connection of mistress ami " friend." 

but the conventionally correct relation of marriage plus 

tlu^ Anu^rican facility for divorce was the 

YoJk\dlT- thenu' of Langdon Mitchell's admirable 
comedy of manners entitled The Nezc York 
IJc'ii. Such a classification, however, does not exhaust the 
contents of that satire. Mr. Mitchell's moral reaches beyond 
the divorce-made-easy conditions of his native land ; he 
is equally concerned with that conception of marriage of which 
those lax divorce laws are the embodiment. It was a tangled 
situation on which the curtain rose. Cynthia Karslake had, 
in a tiff of temper, left her husband ; had secured a dixorce 
of the Sioux Ivdls brand ; and was on the eve of wedding a 
pon\}ious old judge, who would undoubtedly cause more 
outbursts of temper <Te the ceremony was many days old. 
Mr. IMiillimore, the judge in question, hail (mly just divorced 
iiis wile, and the fates mixed these four persons up in a tragic 
manner. The tragedy consisted in the flippant conception 
of marriage common to idl. " Our girls are brought up to be 



110 America of the Americans 

ignorant of life. They are ignorant of life. Life's a joke, 
and marriage is a picnic, and a man's the shawl-strap." 
Again, " Marry a man for a whim, and leave the rest to the 
divorce court — that is the New York idea, correctly stated." 
It is that, rather than easy divorce, which is the central theme 
of the play. As a matter of fact the divorce laws were not 
lax enough for Cynthia and her husband ; a flaw in the 
proceedings left them united when they thought they were 
separated. And that flaw is made the occasion of revealing 
the reality of their love for each other. " Ours was a pre- 
mature divorce, and you are in love with me still." But that 
satisfactory conclusion is only reached after the husband has 
aired some wholesome opinions of American women : " You 
have taught me what the American woman is — a firefly — 
but the fire is so cold that a midget couldn't warm his heart 
in it, much less a man." And an English visitor is made to 
sum up the case with the remark that " Some of your American 
girls are the nicest boys I ever met." It is obvious, then, 
that Mr. Mitchell had the courage of his convictions, for he 
declared that he wrote the play purposely to offend some 
women. But it pleased more than it offended, as indeed its 
deft workmanship and sparkling wit made inevitable. As a 
comedy of manners The New York Idea has not been excelled 
by any American playwright. 

Of a more homely type, akin to the Sag Harhoitr manner, 

Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, a story of everyday life in 

rural Kentucky, depended for its interest 

*• Mrs. Wiggs upon a homespun heroine of unfailing cheer- 

4.u^ riuu^ fulness. The situations were not dramatic, but 
the Cabbage ^^ ■ 

Patch." excellent actmg atoned for that flaw, and for 

the rest Mrs. Wiggs's abundant supply of 

good humour, ample for all in the radius of the cabbage patch, 

ensured a great success for a play which had already become 

familiar to many in its book form. Few comedies have 

illustrated more cogently the heroism which may be displayed 

in bearing up in the face of adverse conditions. 



Plays and Players 111 

Quite another phase of American hfe, the Yiddish environ- 
ment and traditions of so many immigrants, was dealt with 
in Langdon Mitchell's oddly-named The 
" '^Senate ^'^^^ i^m^Z-j^y Sonata. Although the story opens 
in Russia, the scene is quickly transferred to 
American soil, in order that the fallen heroine may begin a 
new life. But the atmosphere of democracy acts upon the 
Jewish temperament in an unexpected way ; the exiles soon 
learn that all they have been taught in their native land as to 
morahty and parental obedience simply " isn't so." In other 
words, The Kreutzer Sonata is a stage commentary on the 
fact that an Americanised Jew is a dejudaized Jew, to whom 
Christianity remains as far off as ever. Nor are there com- 
pensations for such of the race as oppose a stern traditionaUsm 
to their new environment. The heroine's father attempts 
the experiment and his life falls in ruins around him ; and 
when the heroine herself hazards the same experiment it is 
with an even more fatal result. The play does not suggest 
a remedy ; it deals with the facts and leaves them when they 
have worked out their destiny. But it is a vivid and truthful 
picture of Judaism as influenced by American conditions. 

Such plays as The Round Up and The Mayi of the Hour 

are equally typical and racial, the first because of its local colour, 

and the second by reason of its relation to 

'♦ The Round municipal corruption. The Round Up is 

" The Man of P^i^3.rily a romance of Arizona, plus a moving 

the Hour. ' ' picture of human passions adroitly set against 

such a nature background as half explain 

those passions ; The Man of the Hour is so American in its 

atmosphere, dialogue and theme that it would bewilder any 

save a native audience. Here we have that clash of ward 

boss with ward boss and both in conflict with the mayor, 

which needs American understanding for its appreciation ; 

hence the play is a distinct addition to native drama. It 

abounds, too, with characteristic dialogue and quick-change 

situations. 



112 America of the Americans 

Although no account has been taken thus far of the musical 

comedy type of production, it must not be imagined such 

entertainments are lacking. On the contrary, 

Mus^^'^Sh^o'^ " *^^ " G^^^ and Music Show" is a flourishing 
institution in the United States, employing 
innumerable librettists and composers, and a vast army of 
fascinating chorus girls. There is no necessity to characterise 
these productions at length, for they have a starthng family 
hkeness and do not profess any high ambitions. Besides, 
the type is too well known by reason of many successful 
importations. 

More important are the attempts which have been made to 
create a poetic drama. In this excellent work the leadership 
belongs of right to Percy Mackaye whose 
The Poetic Jeanne d'Arc, Sappho and Phaon, and Mater 
have stood the test of actual staging. Unfor- 
tunately, however, Mr. Mackaye has not yet discovered a 
native theme for his muse ; and in that respect OHve Tilford 
Dargan is in the same category, for her Lords and Lovers 
depends upon ancient English history for its inspiration. 
None of Mrs. Dargan's plays have yet reached the stage, 
but in mastery of technique and dramatic characterisation 
she stands in the front rank. The demand for poetic drama, 
indeed, is small, although revivals of stage classics are usually 
well patronised. This is specially true of Shakespearean 
drama, in the exposition of which most of the leading players 
still find their chief ambition. If, too, foreign actors of 
repute elect such roles as Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, or Romeo, 
the American theatre-goer is ever ready with generous 
support. 

Doubtless the activity of pla5Avrights has exceeded that 
of producers, an inevitable situation considering that it is 
less costly to write a drama than to prepare it for the stage ; 
and, of course, there are frequent and loud complaints that 
embryo Shakespeares are denied managerial encouragement ; 
but on a broad view there can be no reasonable ground for 




DAVID BELASCO 



Plays and Players 113 

asserting that producing enterprise is not commensurate with 
creative talent. Far from it, indeed. Austere critics main- 
tain that the American drama is over-commerciaHsed, for- 
getting that even theatrical industry is also a question of 
supply and demand. Of recent years a disturbing factor has 
been introduced in the form of an amazing predilection for 
moving pictures, which has almost emptied the cheaper 
seats of the leading theatres, but already there is a reaction 
which suggests that that phase is only temporary. 

Among the managers who are conspicuous for unwearied 

services in the best interests of American drama an enviable 

position is occupied by David Belasco. No 

David taint of commerciaHsm has suUied his unique 

record. Indeed, those who know him most 

intimately unite in the almost incredible testimony that 

money does not interest him in the least. He has, as a 

matter of fact, practically the child's attitude towards dollars 

and cents. For example, during a rehearsal at which one 

actor persisted in a wrong interpretation of his instructions, 

he, taking a dime from his pocket and holding it up, addressed 

the culprit thus : " Mr. , if you do it right this time 

you shall have this dime ! " On the other hand, he once 

made a promise to one of his stars that he would make her 

a personal present of fifty cents for every time she acted, 

and he has kept that engagement faithfully to the present 

day, although by this time it has involved a big sum. Mr. 

Belasco exhibits the same indifference to money in mounting 

I his plays. Because a wealthy New Yorker of the type who 

i would only smoke expensive cigars was one of the characters 

I in a certain play he insisted that the actor taking that role 

I should always be provided with such cigars, an attention to 

1 reahsm which was utterly wasted on the actor in question, 

who would have preferred to use his own cheaper brand. 

Again, in selecting the properties for a French domestic interior 

he gave orders for the purchase of a costly genuine old French 

chair, and at once detected and declined to allow the use of a 

I 8— (2393A) 



114 America of the Americans 

cheaper replica which his business manager tried to substitute 
for the real article. Indeed, one of the hardest tasks of his 
entourage when he is visiting the cities in which his companies 
are playing is to keep him at a safe distance from all curio 
shops. Nevertheless his property room is crowded with 
valuable genuine antiques, while the green-room of the 
Belasco Theatre in New York holds enough treasures to stock 
a museum. 

But it is for his genius in moulding a play into shape, evolv- 
ing its most effective interpretation, planning its setting, 
and arranging its hghting that Mr. Belasco is even more 
remarkable than for his disregard of cost. Born in San 
Francisco fifty-five years ago, his first experience of stage 
life was gained as a call-boy at one of the theatres on the 
Pacific Coast, but when he journeyed to New York in 1882 he 
carried with him the manuscript of La Belle Russe, which 
scored a pronounced success when produced by Lester 
Wallack. From that date the chief events of his career have 
been the almost annual productions of plays, written either 
by himself or in conjunction with other authors. Whenever 
he has taken in hand the play of another writer it has always 
been with a triumphant result ; indeed, in the long list of his 
productions it is impossible to recall an absolute failure. 
He has, in fact, a genius for stagecraft, not merely in adapting 
his own work or the work of others for effective presentation, 
but also in awakening the utmost abihty of the players who 
come under his direction. He will not foist a " star " on the 
pubHc ; he adopts the wiser plan of giving an actor or actress 
an opportunity to prove their right to stardom. Perhaps 
his gift of calling out the best in a player was never better 
illustrated than in the case of Nance O'Neill, an actress with 
considerable possibilities who had lost a large measure of her 
reputation when Mr. Belasco suddenly took her in hand. In a 
flash she achieved a triumph such as had never before fallen 
to her lot. 

After twenty-five years of strenuous labour, Mr. Belasco, 



Plays and Players 115 

in 1907, at last realised his ambition to possess a theatre of 
his own, planned and built and decorated in harmony with 
his ideals. Named at first the Stuyvesant 
^*Th^^t^^^° Theatre, in honour of the last Dutch governor 
of New York, the building has since been 
more appropriately re-named the Belasco Theatre, and 
although many new playhouses have been erected in the 
interval it is still unique for many admirable qualities. 
Mr. Belasco's idea was to construct an auditorium which 
should convey the effect of a living room in the highest sense 
of that phrase, a room wrapped in the atmospheric intimacy 
of which the spectator, whether in an orchestra stall or in the 
last seat of the balcony, would feel not so much that he was 
in a public place as in a private house to which he had been 
personally invited. This sense of intimacy is heightened by 
the comparatively small size of the theatre — it seats only 
1,000 persons — and by the rich but subdued scheme of deco- 
ration in amber and golden browns and faded green blues. 
No " incidental music " ever disturbs the progress or sequence 
of a drama presented in the Belasco Theatre, and even the 
curtain-raising is announced merely by so many intonations 
of a musical gong. In addition to the Belasco Theatre, 
Mr. Belasco also controls the Republic Theatre in New York 
and numerous other playhouses in the great provincial cities. 
Among the other leading managers of the United States, 
the most conspicuous are Charles and Daniel Frohman, 
I Klaw and Erlanger, the Shuberts, Cohan and 

I ^Ma^n^e^rl'"^ Harris, etc. At different periods various 
I * theatrical trusts have been formed, much to 

the ire of such candid critics as Life and other independent 
I periodicals, but as realignments are carried out with such 
; startling rapidity and frequency, it would be futile to discuss 
J such enterprises. On a broad division it may be said that the 
rival camps are now illustrated by the Frohman versus the 
Shubert interests plus the Keith activities, which, however, 
lare restricted to vaudeville. Mr. Charles Frohman is said 



116 America of the Americans 

to control the largest theatrical business in the world, and is 
manager for many of the most popular players, including 
Maude Adams, John Drew, Alia Nazimova, William Gillette, 
Francis Wilson, Marie Doro, Billie Burke, Ethel Barrymore, 
etc. On the other hand, the Shuberts, who control twelve 
theatres in New York and over fifty in other cities, number 
among their " stars " E. H. Sothern, Julia Marlowe, Effie 
Shannon, and John Mason. 

Wliatever trust may be in the ascendancy there are always 

a few individualists engaged in valiant enterprises. Several 

years ago it was Arnold Daly who made a 

Theatre of Ideas, which was to exploit Art 
and scorn Money. America, Mr. Daly declared, knew nothing 
of the " intellectual significance of the stage " ; it was his 
ambition to teach it the distinction between the play of 
unessential emotions and the play that appeals to the mind. 
And, to carry his scorn of money to the extreme point, he 
decided to abohsh the free-Hst even for dramatic critics. 
That the Theatre of Ideas did not succeed has not deterred 
other enthusiasts from attempting similar experiments. 
Winthrop Ames, for example, who was associated with the 
New Theatre experiment, has his Little Theatre in New York 
for the exploitation of dramatic oddities, but he also has an 
orthodox theatre upon which he doubtless depends for the 
dollars which are needful to finance the less popular playhouse. 
According to the " thirteen dramatic definitions " which 
were contributed to the Century Magazine by George Nathan, 

in the American theatre " ' the play's the thing ' 
The Press -^^ ^^^ following proportion : 1. The ' star.' 

2. The press-agent. 3. The scenery. 4. The 
hghting effects. 5. The modiste or costumer. 6. The play 
(provided the play is not a good play)." Among these 
elements of success an important role is enacted by the second, 
namely, the press-agent. Hence the joke which is constantly 
cropping up in various forms. The standard t\^e may be 



Plays and Players 117 

inferred from this example : The star, addressing her press- 
agent, exclaims " I've lost my diamond tiara \" To whom 
the press-agent rejoins, " How much is it worth ? " " That's 
up to you," is the retort of the star ; " it ought to be worth 
at least a column." For it should be remembered that the 
efficiency of a press-agent is estimated by the number of 
columns about his star which he can get printed by the 
newspapers. 

Perhaps some managers have an exaggerated estimation of 
the value of newspaper publicity and the necessity of securing 
the goodwill of dramatic critics, but nearly all neglect no means 
to obtain that pubHcity. It is true the duties of the American 
press-agent are not confined to newspaper campaigns ; in 
most cases he is also an advance manager who has to arrange 
numerous details with the theatre, with the bill-poster, with 
the transport authorities, and with hotel proprietors, etc. ; 
but, as noted above, in the last resort his efficiency is judged 
by the extent to which he can engineer a newspaper " boom " 
for his star and show. Many startling devices have been 
utihsed to attain those ends. For example, a press-agent 
on one occasion fired off a revolver from a private box, 
apparently at one of the actors, but in reahty into the air, 
and although he was fined $50 for that escapade he was 
rewarded by an amount of free advertising which he could 
not have purchased for $10,000. Again, Anna Held was once 
boomed into publicity by the announcement that she took 
milk baths, an assertion which was backed up by a parade 
through the town of the actual " cow that gives the milk 
that Anna Held uses in her daily baths ! " An actor who 
was known to travel with two or three pets was once exploited 
by a newspaper article which declared that he travelled with 
a whole menagerie, and the press-agent bolstered up his story 
by sending his star sufficient animals to create the desired 
sensation. The present writer was once the innocent cause 
of a mild " boost " for Juha Marlowe. As he was not as 
enthusiastic in his praise of that actress as her manager desired. 



118 America of the Americans 

a huge placard was circulated to call attention to the fact 
that the unfortunate dramatic critic was " one in 500,000," 
for while he did not " like Juha Marlowe " the other 499,000 
" loved " her. As Miss Marlowe was not playing to crowded 
houses it was open to the unlucky critic to retort, " Then 
why don't they go to see her ? " 

Apart from such eccentricities, however, the press-agent 
who confines himself to dignified methods and is unsparing 
in his labour is of real service to a company on the road. The 
dramatic editors of the various newspapers are in need of 
portraits and photographs of scenes, and their hungry columns 
have ample space for personal " stories," anecdotes, abstract 
narratives of the play, etc., etc., and it is the press-agent's 
duty to see that all these reasonable demands are met. And 
they are fully met, for there is no country in the world where 
theatrical publicity is more skilfully organised. 

If, then, American dramatists can rely upon the services 
of competent producers and managers, and upon the use of 
admirable theatres, and the strenuous labours of inventive 
press-agents, how, it may be asked, are they served in the 
matter of exponents for their plays ? Admirably. Apart 
from those actors of Enghsh birth and training who seem to 
have settled permanently in the United States — among whom 
George Arliss, William Faversham, and Robert Mantell may 
be cited as representative of the position won by these exiles 
— ^the players corps of America is fully competent to meet 
all the demands of native dramatists. 

Since the too-early death of Richard Mansfield, the position 

of the leading intellectual actor of America has been occupied 

by Edward Hugh Sothern, the younger son of 

^SoThlm"' ^^^ ^- ^- Sothern of Dundreary fame. His 

early efforts, however, were so unpromising 

as to make his father declare, " Poor Eddie is a nice, lovable 

boy, but he will never make an actor." By close study, 

pluck and confidence, plus unwearied application he has 

completely falsified his father's prophecy. No doubt his 




E. H. SOTHERN 



Plays and Players 119 

seriousness sometimes leads him to overweigh his parts, for 
in his Hamlet, for example, his interpretation is pitched in 
a key of unrelieved melancholy. This mood is more effective 
when he assays such a role as that of Rodion Raskelnikoff, 
but it colours and lowers the romantic note of his work in 
such plays as // / were King and When Knighthood was in 
Flower. Yet that Mr. Sothern can disport himself with the 
best comedians was demonstrated to the hilt by the irresistible 
interpretation he gave of Lord Dundreary when he revived 
his father's most famous play. Having won an assured 
position it is to Mr. Sothern's honour that he has utihsed 
his opportunity to win an audience for the poetic drama. 
For example, it was to his enterprise that American playgoers 
were indebted for the production of such dramas as The Sunken 
Bell, John the Baptist, and Jeanne d'Arc, while that forbidding 
play. The Fool Hath Said, was staged, as he confessed, irrespec- 
tive of any public patronage. " The most remarkable thing 
about these productions," he once said, " is the attitude of my 
friends. They take such a gloomy aspect of the matter — 
quite as though I were being driven into something disagree- 
able against my will. They sort of take a fellow by the hand 
and pat him on the shoulder, you know, and they seem to 
say : ' Well, old fellow, if you must do this sort of thing, of 
course I wish you well. But I'm really sorry for you.' It 
never seems to occur to them that I am doing this because 
I like it." And Mr. Sothern has been justified in the stand he 
has made for high ideals, for his enterprise has invariably 
been rewarded with success. 

Another popular actor, but of far fighter cafibre, is John 
Drew, the rt^presentative of one of the oldest player families 

in America. In his younger days he achieved 
^°^^ much distinction in classical comedy, but 

of later years he has been cast principally in 
what may be called the dress-suit comedy of modern manners. 
Consequently the elan and character drawing which marked 
his earlier work have given place to that ease of manners which 



120 America of the Americans 

is thought appropriate to a twentieth-century drawing-room. 
In fact, Mr. Drew has become somewhat stereotyped, but in 
such plays as The Liars, A Marriage of Convenience, or 
Inconstant George his abiUty to wear a dress-suit faultlessly 
and convey an air of breeding gives him a large and faithful 
following. In fact, to see John Drew in a characteristic part 
is quite a social function in the United States. 

Although born in Scotland, Robert B. Mantell has for so 
many years been definitely associated with the American 

stage that he may be counted among native 
Mantell * actors. He has assumed many romantic 

roles during his thirty-six years' connection 
with the American stage, but his most serious efforts have 
been directed towards the Shakespearean drama. To that 
ambition he brings a seriousness of purpose akin to that of 
Mr. Sothern, but in his Othello and Macbeth and King Lear 
he too frequently makes the mistake of confusing strenuous- 
ness for strength. He can read his lines with genuine elocu- 
tion, but too often by slavish devotion to a mistaken theory 
will ruin the effect. Yet it would be ungracious not to 
acknowledge the great value of his services as an earnest 
exponent of the classical drama. 

Numerous as are the character-actors of America it may 
be doubted whether any have attained quite that mastery 

of their art which distinguishes the work of 
Warfietd David Warfield. Like his manager, Mr. 

Belasco, he is a native of San Francisco, and 
began his career as a programme-seller in one of the theatres 
of that city. Soon after his removal to New York, subse- 
quent to graduating as a super, he was in great demand for 
" funny man " parts in musical comedy, appearing with much 
success in such popular pieces as In Gay New York, The 
Whirl of the Town, and The Belle of New York, and it was his 
work in that lighter form of entertainment which arrested 
the interest of Mr. Belasco and decided him to cast him for 
the title role of The Auctioneer. Mr. Warfield abundantly 




DAVID WARFIELD 



Plays and Players 121 

justified the confidence which had effected his transference 
from the girl-and-music type of production to the " legitimate " 
drama, and when, three years later, Mr. Belasco still further 
tested his gifts by selecting him for the role of Anton Von 
Barwig in The Music Master, he achieved an even greater 
success. Indeed, Mr. Warfield's interpretation of that sadly- 
humorous character is one of the great traditions of the 
American stage, for so fascinating was its appeal to the 
theatre-goer that he played no other part for three seasons, 
during which he appeared as Von Barwig no fewer than 1,007 
times. By the consummate manner in which he depicted 
the trial of a parent's love and portrayed the mingled joys 
and sorrows of the old musician's hfe, he gained a reputation 
which has made him the best-loved actor of his day. His 
flexible voice served him well in that triumph, but even more 
than his modulated tones his command of facial expression 
accounted for the effect he produced. That was a continuous 
index of the sentiments of the passing moments, and a sure 
clue to the sorrow or happiness which dominated the heart 
of the lonely old man. Perhaps the most pathetic moment 
of the drama was that which showed Von Barwig contem- 
plating the picture of his wife and daughter while his friends 
were playing the symphony which had won him his greatest 
triumph, yet, affecting though the music was, those who 
watched Mr. Warfield carefully realised that the strength of 
the scene depended most upon the vivid revelation of soul 
sickness and suffering which was depicted so poignantly in 
the features of the old musician. Those rare quahties were 
also displayed in his impersonation of The Grand Army Man, 
even though the actor was seriously handicapped by having 
to command sympathy for an unworthy object. Within his 
imitations, the limitations which environ an actor who has 
to portray a character of domestic sympathies, Mr. Warfield 
has no serious rival on the American stage. 

In addition to the foregoing, the native dramatist can 
rely upon the services of many sterling actors, including 



122 America of the Americans 

Otis Skinner, John Mason, William Collier, William Gillette, 
and Wilton Lackaye, while for the male support of these 

stars managers have at their command a 
^*^A t^^^^^"^ copious supply of competent players, many 

of whom are thoroughly capable of sustaining 
leading roles. The " star " indeed is an accident, and not 
always a happy one, of the American system, for it is by no 
means uncommon to find a subordinate part played with more 
skill than the chief character. Such managers as Mr. Belasco 
and Mr. Fiske, for example, by the all-round excellence of their 
surrounding companies, have demonstrated again and again 
how ample is the supply of first-rate talent. 

What is true of the male players is equally true of the 
actresses, among whom the most distinguished position is 

occupied by Minnie Maddern Fiske. Born 
Mrs. Fiske. in New Orleans in 1865, Mrs. Fiske began her 

stage career at an unusually early age, appear- 
ing as the Duke of York in Richard III when in her third year. 
At fifteen she became a " star," and for nearly twenty years 
played in New York or on tour in an amazing variety of parts. 
On her marriage with Harrison Grey Fiske in 1889, she retired 
from the stage, but returned in 1894 to achieve still greater 
successes, and firmly establish her position as the Mrs. Siddons 
of her native land. 

No two roles could be more diverse than those of Cynthia 
Karslake in The New York Idea and Rebecca West in Rosmers- 
holm, yet Mrs. Fiske portrayed each character as though she 
had never been other than either. Her Cynthia Karslake 
had all the vitahty of a personal experience. She changed 
her mood as lightly and with as little effort as a cloud-flecked 
summer sky : merriment at the memory of past happiness 
was never far away ; and tears ever followed in the wake of 
smiles. Even more pronounced was her triumph in the more 
complex role of Rebecca West. In the earUer moments of the 
drama she maintained the necessary repression with rare skill, 
yet by that quietness and sureness of touch she built up the 



MINNIE MADDERN FISKE 



Plays and Players 123 

impression that it was in Rebecca's soul the supreme conflict 
was to be fought ; and when the moment of her struggle 
arrived the thrilling hues of her confession were spoken as 
the natural but none the less poignant fulfilment of the 
anticipated. With such restraint, yet with such genuine 
emotion, did she carry through that tremendous scene that it 
seemed as though a woman's heart lay bare in all its agony. 
No praise, indeed, can be too high for Mrs. Fiske at the present 
stage of her career ; she is an actress of masterly mentality, 
one who beholds her characters from every point of view, 
searches out the hidden places, and then brings to their 
interpretation a command of technique which leaves nothing 
to be desired. 

Among other popular actresses of a younger generation 
leading positions are occupied by Juha Marlowe, Maude 

Adams, Ethel Barrymore, and Marie Doro. 
Maude q£ ^j^g^^ jyjjgs Adams is perhaps first favourite, 

largely owing to the elfin-hke character of her 
Peter Pan, a role singularly suited to her fragile form and 
somewhat tenuous technique. Now and then she has been 
cast for more heroic parts, such as Joan of Arc in a version of 
Schiller's drama, but such daring experiments have been 
possible only because of the popularity she has won in more 
appropriate characters. Miss Doro, who is dowered with 
a winsome t5rpe of beauty, estabhshed herself in popular 
affection by the compelhng charm of her Carlotta in The Morals 
of Marcus, but has since justified that success by equally 
fascinating interpretations of more exacting characters. 

Of all the younger actresses, however, Frances Starr is 
the most notable for achievement and the promise of future 

years. After a thorough " griUing " in stock 
Stei?^ company work, she was selected by Mr. 

Belasco for the role of Juanita in The Rose of 
the Rancho, and by the manner in which she utilised that 
opportunity won herself in a single night the status of a " star." 
Although only in her twentieth year when that good fortune 



124 America of the Americans 

offered, she was fully equal to the task of portraying the 
mingled temperament of Juanita's Spanish-American birth, 
balancing the archness of her mother's race against the virile 
spirit of her father's blood with superb ease. Her coquetry 
was inimitable, but it was equalled by her command of the 
deeper passions. More exacting by far were the demands 
made upon her when she was cast for Laura Murdock in The 
Easiest Way, yet in her portrayal of that complex character, 
ever distracted between the luxury of a mistress's position 
and the poverty entailed by faithfulness to a pure love, she 
achieved a veritable tour de force. Unlike, too, the majority 
of American actresses, Miss Starr is entirely free from those 
mannerisms which are so fatal to stage illusion ; in all her 
roles she merges her individuahty more completely than any 
of her rivals. 

Perhaps the only disturbing feature of the contemporary 
American drama is the tendency towards what are euphemis- 
tically termed "uplift" plays. It has been 
Plavs* pointed out in the previous chapter that 

fiction is inchning to trespass in forbidden 
fields under the specious plea of serving the cause of morahty 
by realistic pictures of immorality, and the same argument 
is being used to justify " white slave " and kindred plays. 
To check that tendency, however, a New York association 
has undertaken the regular pubhcation of a " White List " 
of current plays, the object of which is to provide a guide to 
such dramas as are clean and wholesome. This is a significant 
innovation. The " Black List " too often defeats its end by 
giving publicity to the thing it reprobates ; a " White List," 
on the contrary, assumes a good intention on the part of 
playgoers and indicates how that good intention may be 
gratified. 

Of course, dramatic criticism figures largely in the theatrical 
enterprise of America, for most of the leading daily news- 
papers devote a full page each Tuesday to the " openings " 
of the previous night. Much of that criticism may be 



Plays and Players 125 

influenced by box-office conditions, for undoubtedly too many 
dramatic editors are controlled by the advertising depart- 
ment ; yet there are sufficient exceptions to 

pramatic exercise a wholesome influence on American 
Criticism. -r^ it -, ,, -1, • 

drama. Even a cub reporter will rise to 

his responsibihty on occasion, as when one representative of 

that class, in a criticism of Hamlet, remarked that " Mr. 

played the King as if he expected someone else would play 

the ace ! " 



CHAPTER VII 

MUSIC 

When a nation's annual bill for music amounts to about 
$600,000,000 (£110,000,000), giving an average of $6 (£1 4s.) 
per head of the population, it has at least a pecuniary claim 
to be considered musical. Such a claim can confidently be 
advanced for the United States, for according to the statistics 
presented to the Saratoga convention of music teachers in 
1913, the annual expenditure of the country was but little 
short of the figure given above. The various items included 
in that amazing total were classified as follows : Opera, 
$8,000,000 ; concerts, $25,000,000 ; church music, 
$20,000,000; orchestras, $25,000,000; bands, $30,000,000; 
teachers, $220,000,000 ; students abroad, $7,000,000 ; con- 
ventions, $2,500,000; music trades, $135,000,000; music 
rolls, $5,000,000; organs, $10,000,000; musical merchandise, 
$9,500,000; music, $10,500,000; talking machines and 
records, $60,000,000 ; artists for records, $2,000,000 ; musical 
magazines and writers, $3,500,000. 

Had the compiler of those astounding figures attempted 
a similar task when the Metropohtan versus the Manhattan 
rivalry was at its height in New York it is 
Hammerstein. ^^S^^y probable that his entry under the 
heading of opera would have greatly exceeded 
the $8,000,000 of 1913. The competition between those 
two opera houses was due to the enterprise of Oscar Hammer- 
stein, who is the most hvely figure in the musical history of 
America. A native of BerHn, from whence he made a clan- 
destine exit in his eighteenth year, it was, he has confessed, 
a desire to " have revenge on the music-loving public " which 
prompted him to enter the operatic field. That cryptic utter- 
ance needs explaining. It appears, then, that divided family 
counsels were at the bottom of his thirst for recompense, 

126 



Music 127 

for while his father beheved he had the making of a great 
violinist his mother was equally convinced that he would 
win immortal fame as a flutist. As usual, it was the woman 
who had her way. Seizing the opportunity afforded by a 
prolonged absence of her obdurate partner on a business trip, 
Mrs. Hammerstein called in a professor of fluting and bade 
him do his utmost with her son. So admirable was Oscar's 
progress that on the morning after his father's return he was 
bidden take his flute and play a serenade at his parent's 
bedroom door. He obeyed with " When the swallows 
homeward fly," but had not proceeded far when the object 
of the salutation dashed out into the passage and rewarded 
the flutist with a sound spanking. It was then that the iron 
entered into Oscar's soul, and decided him to have his 
" revenge " on all music lovers. 

But the opportunity was long delayed. His first occupation 
as a cigar-maker at $2 a week did not hold much promise of 

carrying out his vow, but as the years went 
Manhattan -^y j^^ prospered after the manner of his race, 

and eventually, after he had established 
connections with the vaudeville and theatrical world, his 
hour dawned. He would build him an opera house, and run 
it in opposition to the already established Metropolitan Opera 
House. Hence the erection of the Manhattan Opera House, 
for the performances at which he outbid the rival organisation 
for the American rights of Thais, Louise, Pelleas and Melisande, 
The Juggler of Notre Dame, and Elektra, while in the matter of 
singers he cornered the exclusive services of Mary Garden, 
Luisa Tetrazzini, Maurice Renaud, Mario Sammarco, Charles 
Gilibert, and Hector Dufranne. Of course prices went 
soaring ; the salaries of the singers rose by 25 per cent., and 
royalties shared in the upward flight. It was during these 
halcyon days that Mme. Tetrazzini delivered the verdict : 
** If you are to judge the musical taste of a city by the price 
it will pay to hear grand opera, then New York, beyond any 
doubt, is the most musical city in the world." 



128 America of the Americans 

As New York will pay anything for what it wants, it is 
hardly surprising that Mr. Hammerstein's " revenge " filled 
his pockets with gold. Naturally the situation affected 
European managers as well as the authorities of the Metro- 
politan, for the former found themselves threatened by a 
depletion of operatic stars ; and to avert the danger an attempt 
was made to establish a trust to secure control of all new 
works and woo the artists away from the Manhattan by offering 
them an all-year contract. At length, however, the Metro- 
politan managers solved the problem on different Hues ; after 
much negotiation, Mr. Hammerstein undertook to withdraw 
from the opera field for ten years on the understanding that 
he was paid $1,200,000 for the goodwill of the business he 
had built up in " revenge " upon all lovers of music. 

That was four years ago. And now Mr. Hammerstein is 
back in New York superintending the erection of another, 
the American National Opera House, arguing in defence of 
malfeasance that his undertaking with the MetropoHtan was 
an agreement in restraint of trade and therefore illegal. 
The courts, however, have decided against his specious plea, 
so that it seems hkely he will have to devote his new temple 
of music to ordinary theatrical productions or girl-and-music 
shows. When his ten years have expired he may be depended 
upon to carry his " revenge " a stage further and to keep 
musical affairs as lively in the future as he has in the past. 

Such a strange history as the foregoing has been made 

possible only because grand opera is more a social fad in 

New York than in any other city of the world. 

a Social Fad ^^ course, it would be absurd to pretend that 
there are not thousands of genuine music- 
lovers in that great city ; the numerous organisations which 
flourish on pure music are proof enough of that ; but it is to 
be feared that in the bulk the patrons of grand opera regard 
it as a social plaything which must be supported no matter 
what the cost. Here, for example, is the frank testimony 
of an American writer : " New York is gaining the name of 



Music 229 

being the centre of music-loving people. To her across the 
ocean come the best artists of all nations. And yet I really 
behave, m the last analysis, grand opera means abom as much 

k1 7 T^' °l ^ T'"" '" ^'^""'y t^«atn>*^"t to the average 
New Yorker. In the highest-priced seats of the biggJt 
opera houses scores of women sit, not hstening but poS 
preenmg. Whatever expression there is on their faces speaks 
of sel -satisfaction and self-appreciation, and absolute seTurity 
that they are domg a smart thing properly. If thev have 
any doubt, they have only to cast their eyes [o the boxls and 
m the jewel-laden, stiffly-posed patrons-in-chief of the g^ 
opera movement m America, have the woodenness of thdr 
posmg confirmed." Such an indictment is support d by the 

cri cl' ofT'*'"" °' 'P^'^' ^'"^" "^y the newspapers to 
; criticism Of the music compared with the columns of descrip- 
I tion of the costumes of the society leaders. And it s stnfi- 
! cant that some of the boxes at the Metropolitan Opera House 

it^'milZ^oo^''' '-' ^^'"^'' ^'- '^"^'^^ -— 

lcouH*nn/^ *''" f^^'^'l' °* ^^^ Metropolitan and Manhattan 
I could not complain that they did not get value for their 

A New York f °°^y' ^^P^^ally when the rivalry of the two 
Season. houses was at its height. The claims of all 

of New Yort M """^^ ^'"^'^ subservient to the demands 
of New York No singer was too costly, no opera too-highlv 
feed, no setting too sumptuous for the music^patrons ofThe 
American capital. In a single season at the Metropoh an for 

tdrrof%H ? T'" "" '°''' ''^ performances from I rep r- 

itoire of thirty-three operas, conducted by such expensive 

mportaions as Gustav Mahler or Arturo ToscanS and 

Sso RnnH v^ T?"' "°™''' ^"'l J^^^^'y- ^"d Messrs. 

£ the'Manh Vt .^°°^' '"'^ ^'=°"'- ^°^ '^' '^^^ reason 

ountr th. ? " ^T T'^'''' ^''' performed, while to 

Shed Marrr f '''' /T' '^°"^'^ ^'- Hammerstein 
xplo ted Mary Garden and Luisa Tetrazzini. The older 

9~(2393A) v/iuci 



130 America of the Americans 

house also made an effort to stimulate native talent by offering 
a prize of $10,000 for the best grand opera written by an 
American. 

On the 15th of the September of 1913, however, the grand 
opera situation in New York underwent a notable transforma- 
tion. The event had been prepared for to 
Grand Opera ^ large extent by an ever-growing agitation 
in English. ^ • -i- t \. t^ t. j i. 

for grand opera m Enghsh. It had been 

asked again and again that if a Russian opera was sung in 
Italian and a German opera in French, why, in an Enghsh- 
speaking country, should the original language of an opera 
be regarded as sacrosanct or be translated into another alien 
tongue ? It is admitted that in Italy it would spell financial 
failure to give an opera in any save the language of the 
country, and the advocates of opera in English maintain that 
the same conditions should prevail in any EngHsh-speaking 
land. To the objection that Enghsh is not a language of song, 
it is replied that next to the Italian it is the easiest in which 
to sing ; and equally effective answers have been made to all 
other objections. Such was the situation in New York when 
a big experiment was made to ascertain whether, apart from 
the " smart set," there was a paying audience for grand opera 
in Enghsh. 

According to the historian of the enterprise, the first impetus 
was given at a luncheon of the New York City Club, when 
Gardner Lamson, an American baritone famihar with 
European conditions, waxed eloquent in favour of an attempt 
to establish in New York an organisation which should 
restrict itself to grand opera in Enghsh. His plea was so 
moving that in a brief space of time a fund of $300,000 was 
raised to further the scheme, and it fortunately happened 
that the abandoned New Theatre was available as an opera 
house for the new company, which was christened the Century. 
At the outset it was proposed to give each opera in Enghsh 
for seven performances and then one in the language in which 
it was written, but that scheme was soon relinquished in favour 



Music 131 

of English performances only. Of course, the principals 
could not expect payment on the scale of Mme. Tetrazzini's 
$3,000 a night, but efficient singers have been forthcoming 
who have been content with about $500 a week, while the 
supply of good chorus-singers at salaries ranging from $25 
to $14 a week has been more than adequate. The experiment, 
indeed, has tapped native sources and revealed a wealth of 
singing talent little suspected. Best of all, too, it has been 
found that the Century Opera House has met a genuine want, 
the want of high-class music at a price within the means of 
people with moderate incomes. There is no " society " at 
the Century, it has been reported ; " the patronage which 
the new institution receives comes from the masses, substan- 
tial folk who can afford to pay reasonable weekly sums for 
entertaining themselves and their famihes. These people, 
who have an inherent love of music and the visual elements 
belonging to opera, have proved that it is the performance 
and the work itself they wish to hear and see, not Caruso or 
Amato or Farrar." Altogether the managers of the Century 
Opera House have reason for their faith that their enterprise 
will tend towards operatic enlightenment and culture, and 
that it will enable Americans to gain an experience for which 
they have hitherto had to go to Europe. 

Apart from the organisations devoted to grand opera, 
New York is well served by numerous other musical associa- 
tions, including the Philharmonic Society, 
^M^ ^°i^ ^^^ Oratorio Society, the Russian Symphony 

Associations. Society, etc., all of which are active and 
enterprising and have a large following. 
The earhest of these societies were founded in the eighteenth 
century, one, the Apollo Society, dating from 1750. The 
present Philharmonic Society was organised in 1842, and five 
years later the Deutscher Liederkrnaz was established to 
foster German classical music. As the names of some of the 
above will indicate. New York has been indebted to its foreign 
element for a great deal of its musical enterprise. 



132 America of the Americans 

In addition to New York, several of the most important 
provincial cities, such as Boston and Chicago and Phila- 
delphia, are well equipped with the machinery 
Provincial ^^j. ^^le provision of grand opera and other 
high-class music, Boston indeed rather preen- 
ing itself upon being a more important musical centre than 
the metropolis. Apart from the Boston Opera Company, 
which was founded in 1908, there are several efficient organisa- 
tions, including the Handel and Hadyn Society (1815), the 
Harvard Musical Association (1837), and the famous Sym- 
phony Orchestra, which was estabhshed in 1881 by Henry 
Lee Higginson, one of those generous and public-spirited 
citizens who are so ubiquitous in the United States. Nor 
should the New England Conservatory of Music be omitted 
from this list, for although only founded in 1880 it is the 
largest institution of its kind in America, providing in no fewer 
than sixteen schools a thoroughly efficient training for some 
2,500 pupils. 

Many glowing tributes have been paid to the Boston 
Symphony Orchestra for its varied merits, including the 
warm enconium of Giacomo Puccini, who 
Boston said, " I was astonished at its precision, its 
Orchestra. beautiful unity and the excellence of its 
wood- wind." On an average the Orchestra 
gives twenty-five concerts each season, and the sale of seats 
for the public rehearsals and the regular performances usually 
evokes spirited competition. Certain seats at this auction 
are offered at the upset prices of $18 and $10 respectively, 
and whatever premium is bid in excess of those sums is added 
to the cost of the seats. No credit is allowed, the seats being 
at once re-offered if not paid for on the spot. Such an austere 
policy is possible because the Orchestra has an enviable 
reputation for the merits of its musicians and the many novel- 
ties it has produced. A notable feature of the concerts, too, 
consists in the unique programme books which have been 
written for the last thirteen years by Philip Hale, the 



Music 133 

accomplished musical critic of the Boston Herald. An author- 
ity of cosmopolitan training, Mr. Hale has no rival in the United 
States for the exhaustiveness of his musical knowledge and 
the grace and humour of his writing. That Boston has so 
high a musical reputation is largely due to the rare quality 
and lofty standards of his critical work. 

Prior to 1909 Bostonian patrons of grand opera had mainly 

to be content with periodical visits from the New York 

Metropolitan Company, whose performances 

^°^Hous^^^^* were given in the spacious old Boston Theatre. 
In 1907, however, a visit from the San Carlo 
Company evoked so much support and enthusiasm that 
several leading citizens formed themselves into a committee 
for the establishment of a permanent opera house in the New 
England capital, with the result that in the November of 1909 
the new Boston Opera House was completed and dedicated 
by a performance of Ponchielli's La Gioconda. In addition 
to its own permanent organisation the Boston company 
has a friendly arrangement with the Metropolitan manage- 
ment in New York, whereby an interchange of artists is 
ensured ; but even more important is the work it has under- 
taken in fostering and training native talent. Under the 
latter scheme Saturday nights are set apart as " debutant 
nights," and on those occasions the principal roles are filled 
by young aspirants. It should also be added as another 
proof of the vitality of the Boston Opera management that 
since the spring of 1912 it has employed the services of Joseph 
Urban, a notable exponent of the new style of stage setting, 
through whose labours its operas have been distinguished 
for unique scenery and costumes. 

In Chicago grand opera conditions used to fluctuate with 

startling rapidity. Time was, too, when the Eastern high 

priests of music were wont to arch their eye- 

^n^Chka^o^ brows at any mention of the packing city's 
interest in grand opera ; that such a com- 
mercial community could have any pretensions to musica 



134 America of the Americans 



1 



taste was incredible. Even in those days, however, there 
were loyal Chicagoans who firmly believed that the windy city 
was destined to take the lead in grand opera. They were by 
no means content with visits from such companies as the 
New York Metropolitan deigned to send for their amusement ; 
to accept companies of that type, said one of these confident 
Chicagoans, " would be to make us subservient to the Eastern 
city and dependent upon the whims and caprices of its wealthy 
magnates who promote grand opera for social purposes, and 
upon the moods and physical conditions of the unstable stars 
that form the Metropolitan company." After several tenta- 
tive experiments, a solution of the difficulty has been found 
for the present in an organisation known as the Philadelphia- 
Chicago Opera Company, which, as its name imphes, divides 
its services between the two cities. In addition there are such 
associations as the Apollo Musical Club, the Chicago Orches- 
tra, etc., the membership of which is materially strengthened 
by the German element in the Chicago population. Although 
the citizens are not innocent of that social use of high-class 
music, which they so reprobate in New Yorkers, they are 
manifesting a growing appreciation of opera for opera's sake. 

In other cities, with the exception of Philadelphia, the 
appreciation of grand opera depends largely upon the magni- 
tude of the stars by whom it is interpreted. Enterprises 
come and go with great frequency. In New Orleans, how- 
ever, and Kansas City, and San Francisco well-equipped tour- 
ing companies can generally rely upon liberal patronage for 
brief seasons, while in the case of the last-named city there is 
now every prospect of a permanent grand opera organisation. 

What is true of efficient opera companies is even more true 
in the cases of celebrated singers and musicians. One of 
their number has truthfully described the 
*! ^ Land^ United States as the land of tours. A vocahst 
or pianist or viohnist with an European 
reputation can always count upon a highly profitable cam- 
paign from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast. Rubenstein 



Music 135 

in the days that are gone, for example, and Paderewski in 
more recent years were acclaimed throughout the land with 
more than royal ovations, while the lady celebrities, if 
unmarried, have been able to take their choice among numer- 
ous multi-millionaires. In the musical world at least the 
average American is a confirmed hero-worshipper, and is 
utterly reckless as to what it may cost to gratify the 
passion. 

Such conditions ought to be an inspiration to native talent. 

And perhaps they have been factors in the careers of such 

renowned American singers as Clara Louise 

g^ative Kellogg, Annie L. Gary, Edyth Walker, 

Lilian Nordica, Emma Eames, and Putnam 

Griswold, not to mention such contemporary stars as Geraldine 

Farrar, Florence Hinkle, Mme. Rider-Kelsey, and Clarence 

Whitehill. Yet, when the programmes and opera casts of 

several years are closely examined it will be found that the 

names are still preponderatingly foreign. Even among 

musicians there are few who have received the recognition 

I which has been won by Fanny B. Zeisler and Maud Powell, 

I while hardly any composer has attained the rank of the late 

1 E. A. MacDowell. Few dictionaries of music, for example, 

\ have any reference to the work of such composers as George 

! W. Chadwick, E. S. Kelley, F. S. Converse, or Arthur Foote, 

j yet they are among the most talented of American writers. 

j Even the offer of a $10,000 prize for the best American grand 

j opera does not seem to have produced any notable effect up 

I to the present. 

j It must be added, however, that when a native does achieve 

j grand opera stardom the recognition of such a triumph is all 

\ that the fortunate singer could wish. The most notable 

illustration of recent years has been afforded by the case of 

Geraldine Farrar, whose visit to her girlhood school resulted 

in an almost pathetic demonstration of hero-worship. The 

mayor of the town graced the occasion with his presence, 

1 there was a fiag-waving reception by the pupils, bouquets 



136 America of the Americans 

were forthcoming without number, and as a finale the heroine 
was greeted with this specially-composed yell : 

Honour, honour, to our greatest prima donna. 
Hip hurrah, hip hurrah, Geraldine Farrar. 
Welcome, welcome, Miss Farrar, 
America's greatest opera star. 

Although, under the new conditions described above, there 
is every probabihty that America will become increasingly 

independent of foreign musicians and singers, 
American ^^le outlook so far as composers goes is not 

so encouraging. With regard to vocahsts, 
the progress already made is far more substantial than is 
apparent, for numerous tenors and basses of American birth 
and training are now singing at the leading European opera 
houses. They only need a foreign name to make them equally 
acceptable in their native land. For composers the condi- 
tions are still more formidable, though they too would com- 
mand more attention if their names ended in -ski or -off or -int. 
While not discounting the excellent work accomplished by 
F. S. Converse, George W. Chadwick, or E. S. Kelley, there 
is no denying that Edward A. MacDowell's is the greatest 
name in American musical history. Yet it was not until 
1888, when he had but twenty years to live, that he became 
known to his fellow-countrymen by his performance of his 
First Modern Suite at Boston. Of all his works his greatest 
achievement, by general consent, is his Indian Suite, in which 
some have traced snatches of such " native " music as Indian 
folk-songs. Such intuition would have greatly angered 
MacDowell, for he was wont to protest against being described 
as an American composer, and declared he would rather not 
be heard at all than be known simply as a composer whose 
works were praised for national gratification. Perhaps 
MacDowell's fame has been dimmed by the too zealous hero- 
worship of many of his admirers, though there are many 
excellent judges of music who admit that while his is an 
honoured place in music it is not quite the one claimed by his 



\ Music 137 

adorers. As to American music he held pronounced views ; 
*' masquerading in the so-called nationahsm of negro clothes cut 
in Bohemia/' he once said, " will not help us. What we must 
arriveat istheyouthful'optimismand vitalityand the undaunted 
tenacity of spirit that characterise the American man." 

As to the hope of purely national music being created for 
the United States, the question is effectually stated by 

PhiUp Hale in the following terms : " There 
^Musi?^ are estimable men and women still living 

who beheve there is no future for ' American ' 
music unless this music be founded on themetic material taken 
from the negroes or the North American Indians, though 
some, more sanguine, would admit music founded on Creole 
motives, Mexican tunes, and the joyiul, whooping shouts of 
cowboys. Their reasoning is sternly logical : a national 
music must be based on folk-song ; there is negro folk-song ; 
there is Indian folk-song ; Americans brought negroes to the 
United States as slaves, kept them as slaves, and finally freed 
them ; negroes sang and sing ; therefore negro music must 
be American music. The North American Indians once 
ruled the country now known as the United States. The 
colonists, whose descendants many of us are, killed thousands 
of Indians, appropriated their land, often did them grievous 
and cruel injury under the guise of philanthropic interest. 
These Indians sang after their own manner. Their wails, 
chants, groans and grunts are folk music. They, themselves, 
were American. Therefore, truly American music must be 
based on Indian thematic material." Mr. Hale protests 
against this specious reasoning that the great majority of 
Americans happen to be neither negroes nor the descendants 
of negroes, nor Indians nor the descendants of Indians, and 
that consequently the folk-song of those peoples have no 
relation whatever to American music. If, indeed, there is 
such a thing as American music in a limited sense of that term 
it will probably be found in the vivacious marches of the 
popular John Philip Sousa. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE FINE ARTS 

So long ago as 1771 Benjamin Franklin, with a prescience 
which seems almost uncanny, foretold the conditions which 
would have a supreme influence on the fine 
a^dAr^t. ^^^^ ^^ *^^ United States. "The Arts," 
he said, " have always travelled westward, 
and there is no doubt of their flowing hereafter on our side of 
the Atlantic, as the number of wealthy inhabitants shall 
increase." In strict fulfilment of that prophecy Jules Claretie 
declared that " the great American fortunes have profoundly 
modified all conditions. In a short time, when we want to 
see the most celebrated pictures of our ov^n school, we shall 
have to take a finer and cross the Atlantic." Such, indeed, 
is the intimate connection between wealth and painting that 
New Yorkers are asking, " Will the milfion-dollar picture 
arrive ? " and the art dealers of that city of millionaires are 
convinced that such a consummation is not merely a proba- 
bility but a practical certainty before the world is much 
older. 

Fifty years ago, however, there were not so many reckless 
buyers. But there were not lacking shrewd dealers who 
made comfortable fortunes by purchasing cheaply in Paris 
to sell rather more dearly in New York. 
Wafers" Those American dealers were profound stu- 
dents of human psychology. Conscious that 
the Bohemian painter in the French capital was in a chronic 
state of poverty, they used to make annual tours of the 
Parisian studios with such a seductive offer as, " Money 
down for everything in the studio, finished or unfinished." 
They usually had their way in those ** wet " purchases, 
and on their return to New York were able to effect a 

138 



The Fine Arts 139 

handsome profit by the simple expedient of enshrining 
every canvas in a gorgeous frame and labelHng the finished 
article " A Gem," " A Clever Study," or " A Masterpiece." 
The purchasers were aware that all American artists went 
to Paris ; such pictures as they were mostly famihar with 
were in the French style ; consequently when " A Master- 
piece " was to be had for " only $400 " few of them could 
resist the temptation. 

Even hotels and drinking-saloons and barbers' shops lent 
a hand in making this market. To-day they might, and they 
would reap a rich reward for their enterprise. For in the 
Hoffman House bar of New York, in Green's in Philadelphia, 
in the RicheHeu or Palmer House at Chicago there are enough 
paintings to stock a huge gallery. Most of these pictures are 
in the French or Franco- American style, and many are by 
artists who have since achieved more than Bohemian fame. 
Fifty years hence some of these saloon or hotel paintings may 
easily rival the old masters in the picture market, while even 
now, as already observed, their value has increased 
enormously. 

But, happily, along with this commercial patronage of 
painting, another and better influence was quietly at 
work. It was embodied in the quiet and 
^r?"^w^'^* discriminating purchases of native-produced 
Influence. ^^^ by such men as Thomas B. Clarke of 
New York. In the early days of his collect- 
ing, Mr. Clarke's means did not allow him to pay fancy 
prices for pictures, but, with only modest sums to offer, he 
sought out the studios of artists of whom he had heard promis- 
ing report, and frankly tendered the price he could afford to 
pay for such pictures as took his fancy. His taste incHned 
most to genre studies, and among the artists whom he encou- 
raged at a period when encouragement was priceless, not a 
few, including Thomas L. Eskins and Harry S. Mowbray and 
Gilbert Gaul and F. S. Church, have since approved Mr. 
Clarke's taste by rising to the first rank of American painters. 



140 America of the Americans 

It is to Mr. Clarke's honour that he set an example which 
the more wealthy collectors were slow to follow ; for while 
the latter were neglecting native talent and spending untold 
wealth on foreign-painted pictures he kept to his more helpful 
pohcy of fostering the art of his own land. 

That phase of foreign patronage has not wholly passed, 
especially in ^the matter of portraiture. Here again the 

astute dealer is a factor in the situation. 
Foreign There is, for example, the story of the dealer 
Painters. who, aware of the weakness of Americans for 

foreign names, made a bargain with a portrait 
painter from over the seas to fit him up with a studio and 
guarantee so many sitters per annum in return for a definite 
salary. Or there was another who promised the artist $100 
per portrait, which he could comfortably afford out of the 
$500 charged to his patrons. American painters are naturally 
wrathful that such fine painters as their own ranks contain 
should be ignored for foreign mediocrities, but one of their 
own number has reminded them that the rich and great of 
their native land like a painter to be pleasant and well- 
mannered, and not above a httle flattery in conversation as 
well as in painting. The protestors, however, are on firmer 
ground when they claim that it takes an American to paint 
an American, pointing their moral by the fact that a French- 
man's portrait of Mr. Roosevelt made the ex-President look 
like a boulevardier, and that the Swiss artist who attempted 
the same task turned his model into a stolid fellow-countr5mian 
of his own. It is not to encourage home industries, so the 
American artists say, that the American should be painted by 
Americans, but because it is only the native who can catch 
the national traits. Still, with a few honourable exceptions, 
the American weakness to be " painted by names " remains 
a serious handicap to native art. 

If the great wealth of America has been responsible for some 
evils in the domain of art, it has also provided an antidote 
by helping to foster a love for pictures. For example, in 



The Fine Arts 141 

connection with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition 
there has been raised a fund of $500,000 (£100,000), which 
is to be expended upon the purchase of pic- 
^^h^^aT^ tures that are to remain permanently in 
Collections. California. A similar policy had been followed 
in relation to the Philadelphia Centennial and 
the Chicago World's Fair, resulting in large accessions to the 
art treasures of those cities. Doubtless these generous funds 
have had primarily in view the purpose of attracting the great- 
est possible number of worthy pictures for the adornment of 
the galleries of the various exhibitions, but the secondary 
result has been of inestimable value in creating permanent 
collections, which, in turn, must have exerted a highly 
beneficial influence on their visitors. 

What may be called the machinery for the exploitation of 
the fine arts in America is adequate and well organised. The 
first place is naturally occupied by the National Academy 
National ^^ Design, which, founded in 1826, has its 
Academy headquarters in New York, and is the Ameri- 
of Design. ^.g^j^ counterpart of the Royal Academy in 
London. Membership in the Academy is classified in the 
customary two grades of Associate National Academicians 
and National Academicians, entitling the artists to add the 
initials of either " A.N. A." or " N.A." to their names, though, 
in harmony with native customs, the use of those initials is 
usually more honoured in the breach than the observance. 
Other New York organisations include the National Sculpture 
Society, the New York Water -Colour Society, the coterie 
known as the Ten American Painters, and the American 
Association of Painters and Sculptors. In addition to the 
biennial, or annual, or irregular exhibitions held by the fore- 
going, many of the chief cities indulge in a picture show at 
least once a year. Thus, the Pennsylvania Academy of the 
Fine Arts, which was founded in 1805, holds its annual exhibi- 
tion in Philadelphia ; the Carnegie Institute at Pittsburg 
also has a yearly exhibition which is famous for its three 



142 America of the Americans 

prizes of $1,500, $1,000, and $500 ; while a third provincial 
rallying-point for the artistic fraternity is provided at the 
Corcoran Gallery in Washington. Besides these fixed festi- 
vals, the minor exhibitions and " one-man shows " organised 
from time to time in such art centres as Boston are too 
numerous for record. 

While these annual exhibitions come and go, leaving in 
their wake an ever-deepening influence, it must not be for- 
gotten that in the majority of the leading 
^r^G5ler?es ^^^^^^ there are permanent art galleries which 
year by year are adding to their treasures of 
old and new masterpieces. It is a singular fact that three 
of the most important of these were founded at the same 
time, for the earhest, the Corcoran Gallery at Washington, 
antedated those at New York and Boston only by a year. 
The Washington gallery was founded and endowed by WiUiam 
W. Corcoran in 1869 " for the perpetual establishment and 
encouragement of the Fine Arts," and the noble white marble 
building in which its treasures are housed is one of the finest 
structures in a city distinguished for its architecture. The 
pictures include many notable examples of the French school, 
as well as a remarkable series of portraits of famous Americans. 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, superbly 
situated in the Central Park, was founded in 1870 by a little 
band of public-spirited citizens, and is generally regarded as 
the richest art museum in the United States. The picture 
galleries contain upwards of 700 paintings representative of 
the most important schools, chief among the exhibits being 
the original " Horse Fair " of Rosa Bonheur, the " Washing- 
ton Crossing the Delaware " of Emanuel Leutze, the " Fried- 
land, 1807 " of Meissonier, and the " Justinian in Council " 
of J. J. Benjamin-Constant. It was in the same year that 
the Boston Museum of Fine Arts was founded, a valuable 
collection for which a new and more worthy home was erected 
in 1908. Among the treasures of this gallery are a unique 
collection of Japanese paintings, numerous portraits of 



The Fine Arts 143 

celebrated Americans, and fine examples of Dutch and 
Italian painting. Apart from such galleries as are specially- 
devoted to art collections, it must not be overlooked that 
many of the public buildings in the various State capitals 
have been enriched with remarkable mural decorations. The 
Library of Congress at Washington is perhaps rather over- 
adorned in this way, but the panels of Puvis de Chavannes 
and Edwin A. Abbey and John S. Sargent in the Boston 
PubHc Library take high rank among the art treasures of the 
country. It has often been urged as an excuse for the back- 
ward state of painting in America that the country has lacked 
that incentive towards art which the Church has supplied in 
other and older lands, but in recent years the Federal and 
State governments have attempted to redress the balance by 
their patronage. 

Seeing that Franklin's anticipation as to the multipUcation 

of " wealthy inhabitants " has been realised, and bearing 

in mind the countless galleries, art schools, 

Is there a ^^d art unions now in existence, and remem- 

of Painting ? bering further the generous patronage of the 
Federal and State governments, it might be 
imagined that America ought to be able to boast the possession 
of a native school of painting. Is that the case ? Although 
Richard Muther admitted that " America has an art of her 
own," he immediately quahfied that statement by adding, 
" yet even those Americans who work in their native land 
betray an accent less national than the Danes, for example, 
or the Dutch ; and national accent they cannot have, because 
the entire civilisation of America, far more than that of other 
countries, is exposed to international influences." But in 
such a dehcate matter as this it is safer to cite American 
opinion, one phase of which receives illustration from an 
article in the Independent, bearing the frank title of " The 
Futility of American Art." According to the writer, it is 
saddening to think of the opportunities American artists are 
missing. " We have our heroes — the Carnegie committee 



144 America of the Americans 

finds them, the artists do not. We have our faiths that men 
and women are devoting their lives to and ready to die for, but 
they do not find expression in art, as they have at former 
times. We have our daily commonplace interests and duties, 
but men of genius who could idealise them for us and show us 
their deeper meaning are lacking." To these general princi- 
ples are added specific examples of the kinds of subjects which 
American artists are expected to paint. " The most dis- 
tinctive characteristic of the present age is the advance of 
science and its apphcation to fife, yet our antiquary of the 
future would not suspect this from the specimens under 
consideration. The wealth of new forms and colour com- 
binations revealed by the polariscope is ignored by our 
decorators. The miracles of the laboratory are unnoticed. 
The inventor, the surgeon, the railroad employee, the factory 
operative, the bridge-builder, the sand-hog of the caisson, the 
printer, the financier, the electric-light mender, do not exist 
for the modern artist. The whole range of college life, full 
of interest, picturesqueness and significance, is not repre- 
sented. Where are the summer hotel, the Coney Island, the 
Bowery melodrama, the Sunday school, the kindergarten, the 
sweatshop, the steam plough, the bachelor maid, the subway, 
the social settlement, the department store, the cowboy on 
the range, the miner in the mountains working his prospect 
alone, the baby tied to the fire escape, the fleet going to the 
Pacific on its mysterious errand, the run on the Knickerbocker, 
the dehvery room of the pubhc library, and the grand stand 
at a football contest ? " 

Such a sweeping indictment is enough to leave an alien 
breathless. But a distinguished member of the band so 
exhaustively arraigned for not doing its duty by its native 
land, namely, Philip LesHe Hale, took up the cudgels with 
fine effect, and retorted upon the critic that nearly all the 
items on his list had been painted. " Mr. Piatt," he pointed 
out, " has painted a laboratory. Mr. Thomas Eakins has 
painted a surgeon lecturing his students. Mr. Dana Marsh 



The Fine Arts 145 

is always doing bridge-builders and electric-light menders. 
Mr. Blum has done a printer. Mr. Eastman Johnson has 
pictured plotting nnanciers. Mr. Wendel, Mr. Paxton, 
Mr. Decamp, and Mr. Homer have done a summer hotel. 
Mr. Mora has done Coney Island. Mr. Meyers is always 
boring us with the Bowery. Miss Norton has done schools 
of different sorts. Mr. Gutherz has done various western 
ploughing scenes. Mr. Penfield has done the bachelor maid. 
Mr. Glackens has done the department store. Mr. Remington 
has painted the cowboy on the range." 

In view of an answer so crushing, it may be concluded that 
one half of artistic America does not know how the other half 

hves. Or perhaps the ignorance of the critic 
^i^^^^^ *° was owing to the more fundamental reason 
America." adduced by Mr. Hale. Of all the subjects 

enumerated above only those had been suc- 
cessful when they had been painted without regard to their 
significance. Where the artist tried to " express America " 
he failed. " What the painters in America have been doing," 
Mr. Hale added, " and are trying to do, is to learn to paint. 
When they have done that, and some have come very near it, 
they may feel like trying what are called ambitious subjects ; 
but ambitious in their sense of the word. They are not 
going to have their subjects imposed on them by Htterateurs. 
They know that sunlight is a more ambitious subject than a 
' Run on the Knickerbocker Bank,' and that to paint a live 
girl of any sort is hard enough without bothering to paint a 
bachelor girl. What artists are interested in are beauty, 
truth, Hfe, love, colour, form, tone, depth, gesture, expression, 
and things like that. And they pick out subjects that shall 
express those quahties. But whether a man keeps his money 
in the Knickerbocker Trust or the First National, doesn't 
interest them." Of course, as Mr. Hale confessed, American 
artists are rather keen about American subjects, but they 
realise that the difficulty is not to find what is significant in 
a national sense but what is beautiful. 

lo— (2393A) 



146 America of the Americans 

Then there is the further problem hinted at above, namely, 

the exposure of American artists to international influences 

plus the fact that so many of them go abroad 

^"l nfluencr^^ for their training and naturally take the colour 
of their studio environment. It should be 
added, also, that Americans are perhaps more adaptable than 
any other race, a trait which inevitably leads to imitation, 
conscious or unconscious. In one respect that quahty has 
been invaluable to American artists, for it has enabled them 
to master the technique of the foreign studios more rapidly 
and thoroughly than any other pupils. In too many cases, 
however, the adaptabihty of the American painter has been 
fatal to originality, as may be seen in the work of Charles S. 
Pearce, for example. His " Ste. Genevieve " is so obviously 
in the manner and spirit of Bastien-Lepage that it might easily 
be mistaken for the work of the French artist. Again, the 
" Une Sollicitation a Richelieu " of Walter Gay could hardly 
have existed if Paul Delaroche had not Hved. Such examples 
could be multipHed indefinitely, but there is no necessity 
to iterate a truism which is not denied. 

Any estimation of American painting must necessarily be 

complicated by the fact that the two greatest artists in the 

pictorial annals of the country —Whistler and 

^[^fluence! Sargent— although of American birth, are 

more remarkable for their European than 

their native affinities. Yet their influence, especially that of 

Whistler, has reached across the Atlantic, for Whistler's 

scorn of the hterary element in painting and his insistence 

upon the supreme importance of harmonies have effected a 

transformation in American art. Such pictures as Edwin L. 

Week's "The Last Journey," or Gari Melchers's " The Sermon/' 

or Winslow Homer's " Sunday Morning in Old Virginia," not 

to mention romantic landscapes of the style of Thomas Cole's 

" A Dream of Arcady," are practically obsolete. 

That American painting has not been wholly devoid of 
individuality is exemphfied by the secessions which have 



The Fine Arts 147 

disturbed its history during the last fifty years. It might 
have been anticipated that in so new and democratic a 
country the National Academy of Design 
R '^{J?*^^ would have maintained for many generations a 
catholic hospitality towards all types of art, 
whereas in about half a century that institution developed a 
conservatism which would have done credit to the Royal 
Academy in London at the height of the Pre-Raphaelite 
revolt. As the National Academy of Design was recognised 
as the leading art institution of the country, its indifference 
to new ideas and methods was such a serious menace to the 
younger painters that they banded themselves together into 
the Society of American Painters, an organisation which, 
though it no longer exists, was able to awaken the Academy 
to the necessity of a broader outlook and to educate the 
country as to the possibihty of there being more than one 
way of painting a picture. There have been other painter 
rebeUions, and that there are many fine artists who are 
still outside the charmed official ring is obvious from the 
World Almanac's lengthy fist of " Additional Representative 
American Artists " who have no affihation with the National 
Academy ; but it must be added that the independents have 
always maintained their opposition with a minimum of 
bitterness. Indeed, some of those rebels have actually 
retained their membership in the Academy after going into 
Opposition, a state of divided allegiance utterly incompre- 

Eensible to those who could not imagine a P.R.B. also signing 
imself R.A. 
i One of the newest societies, the American Association of 
iPainters and Sculptors, was responsible for the greatest 
sensation in the recent art history of the 
j America." United States. As many of its members 
j had decided leanings towards the Post- 

(mpressionist school, and a few had even coquetted with 
pubism, it was hardly surprising that the International 
Exhibition which they held in New York in 1913 was chiefly 



148 America of the Americans 

notable for its freak " pictures." It was certainly a compre- 
hensive collection, including paintings by Ingres, Corot, 
Daumier, Cezanne, and Manet, and numerous examples by 
the Post-Impressionists and Cubists. As a commercial 
enterprise the exhibition must have been decidedly profitable, 
for during the four weeks it remained on view upwards of 
50,000 persons paid for admission, while many sales were 
effected. And as a factor in the amusement of New York 
the show was equally successful, for the Post-Impressionist 
and Cubist exhibits were a source of prodigious mirth. Such, 
indeed, was the influence of those distortions upon the casual 
gallery-visitor that one of their number, lured to the orthodox 
exhibition of the Academy later in the year by the prospect 
of a renewal of his enjo3mient, was overheard to exclaim to his 
companion, "Oh, come on. Bill, there's nothing to laugh at here." 
Perhaps it is too early to estimate the influence of that 
exhibition on the younger artists of America, yet it is to 
be feared that its pernicious effect is already at work among 
the more adaptable of their number. For while the majority 
of the visitors merely laughed at the Post-Impressionist and 
Cubist monstrosities, there were actually some, such is the 
weakness of the American temperament for the " latest " 
thing, who took them seriously. How the poseurs or char- 
latans of the Latin Quarter cafes must have shrieked with 
delight when they learnt that their abortions had been regar- 
ded seriously not merely by the amateurs of New York but 
also by some of the painters. After all, however, there were 
some American painters who had helped to prepare the way 
for such a result. If George Luks in his " Dr. Slop " had 
travelled so far from his " Portrait of an Old Woman " as to 
suggest that he had been using a photographic lens which was 
getting more and more out of focus, Arthur B. Davies in his 
" The Great Mother " had demonstrated that he was already 
covering canvas with the square chunks of paint so beloved 
by the Cubists. Then there was Henry G. Dearth's " The 
Virgin," which was as wooden as an image carved by an 



The Fine Arts 149 

untutored savage. Even John W. Alexander, who as the 
president of the National Academy of Design ought to set 
■ a better example, has shown some tendency to succumb to 
) Cubist influences by the flatness of his modelHng in such works 
, as his " Study in Tone." Happily there is httle probability 
•of Cubist or Post-Impressionist freaks being more than a 
^passing sensation, for until a new set of senses has been 
: evolved the American sense of humour will save the situation. 
1 And in the bulk American artists, thanks to their European 
.training, reahse to the full that no advance will be made by 
fmen who will not learn to draw and who profess " a fatuous 
} contempt " for the lessons of the past. 
J In a land where convention counts for so little, it may 
a be hazardous to seek an outstanding characteristic, yet if 
' The Problem ^^^^^ ^^ ^"^ tendency of American art more 
j of "Light!^ marked than another at the present time it 
j will probably be found in a supreme interest 

im the mastery of light in all its phases. That is primarily 
jthe problem with which D. W. Tryon was concerned in 
ipainting his pensive " Before Sunset, May," or which occupied 
|Charles Melville Dewey in his " Sunset," and if Frank W. 
iBenson's " A Rainy Day " is pitched in a higher key it is 
Estill the same theme with which the artist is most concerned. 
|It has been well said of the Boston men, of whom Mr. Benson 
■is one, that they proclaim their modernity by their pre- 
pccupation with the problems of light ; but that distinction 
is not confined to the artists of " the Hub." J. Alden Weir, 
jfor example, and Ernest Lawson and many more are addressing 
themselves to the same task. 

I Despite Mr. Hale's formidable hst quoted above, the recent 
loutput of American artists is notable for the httle attention 
it pays to themes regarded as purely national. 
Themes ^^^^^ ^^^ exceptions, of course, such as 
Neglected. George W. Bellows's " North River," a scene 
of the busy port of New York, or Thomas S. 
:iarke's " The Dawn of a New Life," another variant of the 



150 America of the Americans 

same theme plus the immigrant element, but these are the 
proofs of the rule, for, as Mr. Alexander has protested, the 
artists of his native land are no longer so foolish as to imagine 
that a national note can be struck by such trivial means. 
If, as is the case, an artist here and there paints so character- 
istic a feature of America as the sky-scraper he does it in the 
romantic manner, treating those architectural monuments 
as though they were the work not of man but of nature. 
But one may look in vain for those " Wild West " episodes, 
for Indians in war paint or cow-boys in moccasins with which 
the late Frederic Remington used to delight his admirers. 
Nay, further, such national landscapes as used to come from 
the studio of Charles H. Miller, his Long Island studies, his 
bits of the Haarlem River, belong to the past. It has dawned 
upon American artists that landscapes in which the buildings 
are too new to suggest the destiny of man had better be 
bequeathed to their great-great-grandsons at the least. Even 
the veteran Winslow Homer has long outhved what some 
would call the national phase of his art. 

Whether the national accent has been attained by other 

means must remain an open question. Just as it has often 

been af&rmed that " the great American 

^^n^t"^^ novel " or "the great American play " had 
actually arrived, so at different intervals 
there have not been wanting brave spirits to declare that at 
last America had an art of her own. Mr. Alexander is a 
member of that courageous band, but the utmost he can 
advance in support of his faith is this : " Great foreign 
landscapists most certainly exist, but not in such large 
aggregations of men whose average is so varied in nature, or 
who so thoroughly interpret the country they depict as do 
our American landscape painters. And, above all, it is not 
only their subjects, but their manner, that is American." 
If all this could be admitted, little though some may deem it, 
then there would be no denying the existence of a purely 
American art. But if we examine such landscapes as D. W. 



The Fine Arts 151 

Tryon's " Before Sunset, May," or J. Alden Weir's " Pan 
and the Wolf," or Charles M. Dewey's " Sunset," what is the 
effect they produce ? Mainly that they are studies in the 
manner of Corot and have nothing distinctively American 
in their theme. 

In short, it seems only too inevitable that the American 
artist will for long be catalogued under foreign labels. Thus, 
just as Mr. Sargent in his " El Jaleo " period 
Foreign might truthfully have been described as 
" the American Goya," so Wyatt Eaton was 
dubbed " the American Millet," J. Appleton Brown as " the 
American Dupre," William M. Chase as " the American 
Whistler," and W. Thomas Dewing as " the American 
Orchardson." Perhaps some of these classifications may be 
fanciful, but in the majority of cases they have been made 
because of a too obvious similarity. If one who looks upon 
a landscape by Mr. Weir at once ejaculates " Corot," how 
can it be claimed that the artist's manner is American ? In 
much portraiture this derivation from well-known schools is 
as strongly marked as in the landscape work, for it would be 
impossible for anyone familiar with the history of art to 
mistake the Spanish influence betrayed by such artists as 
Robert Henri, or the affinity of Robert Reid's decorative 
portraiture with the Scots school. It is undeniable that an 
average collection of American paintings gives the onlooker 
the impression that he is attending an exhibition at the Salon 
of the Champ de Mars, so persistent is the French accent. 
It may be freely admitted that this French accent is admirably 
done ; that no students from other lands have a tithe of the 
quickness in catching it ; but that very perfection is fatal to 
nationality. It has, indeed, been well said that American 
painting will find itself when it takes the whole art of Europe 
for granted. 

As an illustration of how this question of a national art is 
still in the position of Mohammed's coffin it is instructive 
to find that several attempts to name the " best ten painters " 



152 America of the Americans 

of the United States have ended in confusion. The Hsts 
vary with the personal equation. It might be imagined that 

the Liberals would vote for the " Ten American 
Ten^Pain?ers* " P^i^^^^s " en bloc, but there are those who 

hold that some in that charmed circle are 
** hardly up to the standard." In fact, every artist would 
revise the hst differently, and it is a remarkable feature 
of other voting that no one artist received the complete 
suffrage. Doubtless there are those who have most hopes of 
deliverance from Boston, seeing that nearly all the " Ten " 
are Boston men. 

If, however, nothing more committal than an open verdict 
is possible with regard to the question whether there is an 

American school of painting, a far more 
^c^lpture definite conclusion can be reached with 

reference to sculpture. The various art 
organisations of the United States include a National Sculpture 
Society, which has accomplished much useful work since it 
was founded in 1896. The objects it set before it were " the 
spreading of the knowledge of good sculpture, the fostering 
of the taste for ideal sculpture and its production, both 
for the household and museums ; the promotion of the 
decoration of public and other buildings, squares, and parks 
with sculpture of a high class ; the improvement of the 
quality of the sculptor's art as apphed to industries, and the 
providing, from time to time, for exhibitions of sculpture 
and objects of industrial art in which sculpture enters." In 
carrying out one part of that programme the society arranged 
for travelling exhibitions, the first of which was held at Bal- 
timore in 1908, where the city authorities provided a huge 
exhibition hall free of cost. Nearly 40,000 visitors paid for 
admission, and the organisers were amply rewarded for 
their enterprise by numerous purchases of exhibits. Encou- 
raged by that result, the winter show of the National 
Academy of New York was enlarged to include, for the 
first time, an adequate display of American sculpture, a 



The Fine Arts 153 

precedent which has since been followed with ever-increasing 
success. 

Yet sculpture was a later comer into the circle of the fine 
arts than painting, for the great difficulty at the outset 
was to combat that Puritanic horror of the nude which 
survived long after the death of Puritanism. The victory- 
was won only by strategy, that is, by the enemy's position 
being first outflanked by strict adhesion to the classical style. 
When that was accompHshed, the field was clear for modern 
naturaHsm. 

When, as even now may happen again and again, native 
criticism bears harshly on native sculpture, it must be remem- 
bered that the objects of that criticism belong almost entirely 
to the classical period and include the statues of famous 
Americans or those soldiers' monuments which belong to the 
days when sculpture was battling against the prejudice which 
earlier generations entertained for the nude. Certainly many 
of the ef&gies which crowd the Statuary Hall of the Capitol at 
Washington have been truthfully described as " freaks and 
grotesques," and as presenting a " terrifying spectacle " ; 
while the earlier soldiers' monuments are generally admitted 
to have added another pang to grief. But those were the 
'prentice days of the American sculptor, and only the land 
which is innocent of like enormities is entitled to cast the 
first stone. 

A brighter era dawned with the advent of Augustus St. 

Gaudens, who although still the greatest figure in American 

sculpture set a standard which is proving 

St cSude^ independent of his personal presence. His 
Shaw Memorial on the edge of Boston Com- 
mon, a panel in high relief to the memory of Colonel Robert 
Shaw and the coloured regiment which he commanded in the 
Civil War, is one of the noblest works in all America, instinct 
with Hfe and faultless in its modelling. Although St. Gaudens 
studied in France and Italy, he preserved his nationality 
unaffected, executing a " Hiawatha " even during his Rome 



154 America of the Americans 

days ; and when he finally settled in New York it was his 
good fortune to secure commissions which confirmed him in 
his devotion to American themes and ideas. Happily, too, 
in his statues of Admiral Farragut, Abraham Lincoln, and 
General Sherman he was able to transfuse his models into 
types. Than the Peter Cooper or General Sherman of New 
York, it would be difficult to imagine statues more faithful 
to the American temperament while at the same time highly 
effective as portraits. 

Great, however, as were the achievements and profound as 
is the influence of St. Gaudens, it must not be overlooked that 
he was preceded by several notable exponents 
^French'* ^^ *^^ naturalistic school. Among these a 
high place is occupied by Daniel Chester 
French, whose "The Minute Man" and "John Harvard" 
are as thoroughly characteristic as the work of St. Gaudens. 
Like so many Americans, Mr. Chester, as a youth, deHghted 
to while away a leisure hour by whitthng with a knife, and it 
was his skill in carving a frog out of a turnip which prompted 
a fatherly exhortation that he should try his hand on less 
perishable material. His first notable commission was 
" The Minute Man " of Concord, in which his bent towards 
naturalism was as clearly revealed as in any of his later works. 
The " embattled farmer " of that statue, who grasps his 
musket with one hand while the other rests on the handle of 
his plough, is suffused with emotion, while the figure as a 
whole is finely suggestive of the class that provided an early 
illustration of a nation in arms. Mr. French's largest work 
is the gigantic draped figure of " The Repubhc " which he 
executed for the decoration of the World's Fair at Chicago, 
and if that effort was indebted to Bertholdi's famous statue 
of " Liberty," it yet owed much to the sculptor's consciousness 
of the spirit of his native land. More recently Mr. French 
undertook the huge task of superintending the adornment of 
the Brookljm Institute of Arts and Sciences, for which he 
supplied many figures, chief among them being " Greek 



The Fine Arts 155 

Religion/' a work which manifested a regrettable reversion 
to classical lines. If that was inevitable owing to his subject, 
he gave proof in his superb " Melvin Memorial " that his 
sympathy with the present remains unaffected. The drapery 
alone of the " Melvin Memorial," which falls in natural hues 
with all the softness of silk, shows that the chisel which carved 
" The Minute Man " had not lost its skill. 

Among other sculptors who strike a note still more modern 
than that of Mr. French must be included Gutzon Borglam, 

Augustus Lukeman, Lorado Taft, and Charles 
^""sSil^torT^ Keck. The first on this Hst, notwithstanding 

his foreign name, is a native-born American, 
and apart from his sculpture has achieved distinction as a 
figure and animal painter. But it is by his busts and statues 
Mr. Borglam is best known and will be longest remembered, 
for his " Abraham Lincoln " is worthy to rank with the finest 
of Rodin's work, and his statue of " General P. H. Sheridan " 
touches the highest level of mihtary sculpture. The Lincoln 
head is broadly modelled, and full use is made of deep shade 
to accentuate the great President's sympathetic spirit ; in 
the Sheridan piece it is difficult to decide which is the more 
worthy of admiration, the curbed tensity of the horse or the 
alert pose of the soldier. One of Mr. Lukeman's most recent 
works has been a " Soldiers' Monument," and that he trium- 
phantly survived such a critical test both in his winged figure 
of " Victory " and in the vigour of the soldier who is marching 
before her must be accounted a considerable achievement. 
Mr. Keck is one of the younger men, and is not entirely weaned 
from classical traditions, as is shown by his " Drama " and 
" Music," figures in which there is a blend of hermaphrodism ; 
but in his bust of " Ehhu Vedder " and above all in his impos- 
ing " Youthful America/' he shows himself attuned to his 
age, and a master of rare technical powers. Two other 
sculptors of considerable accompHshment and even greater 
promise are John Davidson and Paul Manship, the former 
having displayed an unusual skill in his portraiture and the 



156 America of the Americans 

latter a surprising command of line in his low relief work, 
and a rare deftness of execution in the round. It is an added 
strength to American sculpture, too, that its exponents 
include many women of high abihty, for if Beatrice Longman 
and others of her sex are generally content to confine them- 
selves to such drawing-room heads as the former's vivacious 
" Peggy," it must be remembered that " sculpture in Uttle " 
is destined to play an effective role in the education of public 
taste. 

When the founders of the National Sculpture Society 
included among their ideals the fostering of suitable decora- 
tions for public and other buildings they 

Architecture, linked their art with that of architecture, 
which, in the last quarter of the nineteenth 
century, began to assume a greater importance than at any 
previous period of the nation's history. That architecture 
in America at last became differentiated from mere building 
was largely due to the influence of the late H. H. Richardson 
who, beginning with obvious imitations of English Gothic, 
finally, by a blend of his own ideas with Southern Roman- 
esque, evolved a style which became known as " Richardson- 
esque." Perhaps the noblest monument to his genius is the 
Trinity Church of Boston, the imposing tower of which helps 
to condone the paucity of detail in the building as a whole ; 
but for the majority his smaller works, such as the Crane 
Memorial Library at Quincy, are far richer in aesthetic 
pleasure. Fifty years hence those unambitious buildings, 
with their beautifully arched doorways, semi-casement 
windows and spreading roofs will be among the most 
picturesque features of the American landscape. 

In some respects the great wealth of the country has had 
as fatal results in architecture as in painting. Mrs. Wharton 
hints at the trouble in The House of Mirth by the medium of 
Mr. Van Alstyne's pregnant remarks on the mansions of 
Fifth Avenue. " That Greiner house, now " — commented 
Mr. Van to his friend Selden, " a typical rung in the social 



The Fine Arts 157 

ladder ! The man who built it came from a milieu where all 
the dishes are put on the table at once. His fa9ade is a 
complete architectural meal ; if he had omitted a style his 
friends might have thought the money had given out." Or 
there was the other type of house which was intended to pro- 
claim that its owner had been to Europe, and had a standard. 
"I'm sure Mrs. Bry thinks her house a copy of the Trianon ; 
in America every marble house with gilt furniture is thought 
to be a copy of the Trianon. What a clever chap that 
architect is, though — how he takes his client's measure ! 
He has put the whole of Mrs. Bry in his use of the composite 
order. Now for the Trenors, you remember, he chose the 
Corinthian ; exuberant, but based on the best precedent." 
But the nouveau riche are not singular in having their measure 
taken by astute architects ; the members of the Chamber of 
Commerce in New York must have been as easily diagnosed 
by James Baker, when he fitted them out with that fussy 
marble, bronze-decorated pile which is one of the distractions 
of Liberty Street. 

While there is no denying the claim that America holds 
the " record " for the number, size and cost of new buildings 

erected in recent years, it must be added that 
^^^Bu^ildi^gs^^^^ many of those buildings are distinct additions 

to the world's wealth of architecture. Some 
of the State Houses take high rank among the noblest parlia- 
ments of the nations, while even such purely commercial 
structures as the Union Depot at Washington or the Penn- 
sylvania Terminal in New York are more like royal palaces 
than railroad stations. For the latter it is claimed that it 
occupies more space than " any other building ever con- 
structed at one time in the history of the world," while the 
total cost of about $50,000,000 (£10,000,000) estabHshes 
a unique record for a railroad depot. 

Of course, no reference to the mammoth buildings of the 
United States would be complete if it ignored the " Sky- 
scraper " for which the country is famous. It is a monument 



158 America of the Americans 

to American ingenuity. Nature put a limit to the number 
of buildings which could be erected on Manhattan Island but 
it imposed none on the height to which they 
" Sky-Scraper. " ^^^^^ ^^ carried. Land is so valuable in the 
business district of New York that some 
solution of its restricted area had to be devised, and it was 
characteristic of American daring to carry up into the 
heavens those buildings which could not be expanded in any 
other direction. So the sky-scraper is indigenous to New 
York ; so much so, indeed, that while it fits into the scheme 
of things there it seems out of place in other cities. Two 
factors made the sky-scraper possible : the Hft or " elevator," 
and the steel framework which enabled an architect to design 
a building of almost any height. The Flatiron, with its twenty 
stories, was thought to be a marvellous achievement, but that 
lofty structure has been dwarfed by the Singer building, which 
boasts of forty-seven stories and an extreme height of 612 feet. 
A greater altitude has been reached in the Metropolitan Life 
Building, which soars to 700 feet, and a rival company has 
threatened to outclass that with a building touching the 
1,000 feet mark. Of course these fearsome structures have 
httle claim to be regarded as architectural triumphs, yet it 
must be admitted that they possess a strange fascination when 
the first wonder is exhausted. At the least they are thoroughly 
typical of American scorn of convention. 

It is in the realm of domestic architecture, however, that 

the best and most important work is being done. Apart from 

the Newport " Cottages," those elaborate 

Architechire "mansions which illustrate the devil's darling 
sin of the " pride that apes humility," there 
are many admirable architects whose adaptations of colonial 
and mission styles are resulting in the creation of many beau- 
tiful homes. Both in New England and in the South there 
are picturesque old houses which are providing excellent 
starting-points for new departures, while the Spanish mission 
buildings of California afford delightful models for that sunnier 



The Fine Arts 159 

region. If, in Washington, for example, some wealthy 
Americans insist that their homes shall reproduce foreign 
styles, they are generally distinguished for such changes as 
keep them in harmony with their environment. 

Among the minor proofs of an increasing love of the beau- 
tiful such appUed arts as silver-work, wood-carving, and 
embroidery furnish cumulative evidence that the possession 
of great wealth is not always fatal to refined taste. In fact, 
those who have been privileged to enjoy the hospitality of 
American homes in various parts of that vast country are 
well aware that in their pleasing exteriors and in the refinement 
of their interiors they bespeak a genuine appreciation of 
aesthetic pleasure. 



CHAPTER IX 

INVENTION AND SCIENCE 

In an earlier chapter reference was made to that newspaper 

plebiscite, by which an attempt was made to ascertain who, 

in the popular opinion, were the ten Americans that deserved 

best of their country for having been most practically useful 

to the community as a whole, and it is significant that the 

place of honour at the head of the poll was awarded to Thomas 

Alva Edison. That vote is not the only indication of the 

supreme place in American favour occupied by the famous 

electrician. One of the vergers of Westminster Abbey, 

when indicating the burial-place of Addison in Henry VII's 

chapel, delights to relate that a transatlantic lady to whom 

he showed the tomb, after adjusting her pince-nez and glancing 

downwards, ejaculated " Addison ! Oh, yes ; the man who 

invented the electric light ! " Apparently she was not the 

least amazed to find that her fellow-countryman had been 

deemed worthy of sepulture among the royal occupants of 

Henry VIFs chapel. 

For, as the popular vote shows, Mr. Edison, although 

happily not yet a candidate for Westminster Abbey, is 

undoubtedly the typical American of his day. 

National owincr to the fact that he is so thoroughly 
Passion for ^ ^- r xt_ ^- ^ • x 

New Things, representative of the national passion for 

doing new things or devising new ways of 
doing old things. In the volume of its Patent Office business, 
the United States leads the world. According to the latest 
statistics, which include the figures from the eariiest records 
up to the end of 1912, out of the grand total of 3,410,185 
patents issued in all countries, the United States claimed 
1,106,235 as its share, that is, nearly a third of the patents 
of the entire world. This preponderance has been of con- 
sistent growth since 1870, for whereas up to 1850 America 

160 



Invention and Science 161 

had less than 1,000 patents to its credit, once the inventive 
spirit of the country was awakened its activity soon outstripped 
that of the older nations. Hence the Patent Ofhce has become 
one of the most profitable of Government departments, its 
net surplus over expenditure now exceeding $7,000,000. 

That sum, however, takes no account of the enormous 
incomes enjoyed by the countless patent lawyers of the 

country, or of the revenue represented by the 
Patent seductive advertisements of those experts. 

As the Patent Of&ce is situated at Washington, 
most of the patent lawyers have their headquarters in the 
capital, whence the country is flooded with alluring appeals 
for " new ideas," for apphcations for booklets with hsts of 
" inventions wanted," etc. One firm adorns its advertise- 
ments with a picture of the " new $200,000 building specially 
erected " by them for their " own use," and offers a pamphlet 
containing particulars of " a prize of one million dollars 
offered for one invention " ; another advertiser decorates 
his announcement with his own photograph and urges the 
specious plea that he makes his fee contingent upon his success 
in procuring the patent. These advertisements are worth 
attention as illustrating the enormous importance attached 
to inventions in the United States. 

Of course, this abnormal interest in the production of 
novelties is mainly due to the national passion for wealth. 

Such an ideahst as Professor Henry Van 

Wealth the Dvke, however, assures us that the Amercian 
Inventor's • , • ^ -i • -i 

Incentive. mventor IS not necessarily, nor primarily, a 

man who is out after money "He is 

hunting a different kind of game, and one which interests 

him far more deeply : a triumph over nature, a conquest of 

time or space, the training of a wild force, or the discovery 

of a new one." Unfortunately the records of the Patent 

Office make it impossible to accept this lofty view ; for those 

records show how persistently year after year attempts are 

made to secure protection for the most trivial inventions, and 

II— (2393A) 



162 America of the Americans 

how tenaciously all holders of patents defend the slightest 
infringements of their rights. It may be admitted that 
keenness to do something new is a marked American trait ; 
but it is also incontestable that the chief driving-force of that 
trait is the knowledge of the big monetary reward which 
waits upon success. As in the cases of the writing of a popular 
novel or the production of a successful drama, the huge 
population of America ensures an enormous fortune for the 
lucky inventor. 

But that the pubhc is also a large gainer from this unwearied 
ingenuity may be frankly admitted. The domestic and 
commercial hfe of the entire world would be 
Some seriously impoverished by the eUmination 

Inventions. ^^ American inventions. How distressed, for 
example, would be the thrifty housewife if 
she were deprived of her sewing-machine ; and how many 
homes would be less cheerful if they were robbed of their 
piano-players. Perhaps Mr. Edison's phonograph has not 
proved an unmixed boon, especially in its more strident form, 
but the improvements already effected in that instrument 
give promise of a more endurable future. Both for domestic 
and commercial communication, too, the loss of the telephone 
would be almost a tragedy, while if Morse telegraphy were 
destroyed the social and business life of the world would have 
to be reconstructed. Other American inventions which have 
become essential to the Hfe of the civilised world include the 
typewriter, numerous kinds of agricultural machines, the 
incandescent Hght, etc., etc. With regard to agricultural 
machines — harvesters and self-binders, and complicated 
mechanism which will reap and thrash and sack in one opera- 
tion — it is well known that America leads the world in 
ingenuity and production ; and in the matter of typewriters 
there is no gainsajring her supremacy. 

And in small as well as great things, American fertility of 
invention is unrivalled. For those who revel in shopping 
it would be impossible to imagine a more delightful experience 



Invention and Science 163 

than an exploration of a typical " Ten-cent Store " in any 
of the great cities. It is not merely that the variety of articles 
which can be purchased for fivepence each is bewildering, 
but that so many of those articles are of such an ingenious 
character that the housekeeper who has had experience of 
their novelty and usefulness is eternally discontented with 
a country where they are not obtainable. The business man 
in his ofhce, too, has good occasion to be grateful to the 
American inventor, for if the " American roll-top desk " 
must really be credited to France, his fihng cabinets, paper- 
fasteners, water- well paste-pot, cheque writer, and many 
other oddments, will generally betray their United States' 
origin. Even a partial catalogue of such and kindred inven- 
tions would represent a formidable hst, as may be easily 
imagined when it is remembered that the patents issued last 
year numbered 37,731. Every State in the Union made some 
contribution to that total, even Alaska being responsible for 
five, but naturally New York took the lead with 5,103 to its 
credit, Illinois coming next with 3,441. 

One pertinent illustration of the far-reaching effect of an 

American invention is provided by the almost romantic 

history of Mr. Edison's cinematograph. What- 

Cinemltoffraoh ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ *^^ suggestive value of 
^ ^ * the old " Wheel of Life," or of M. Ducos's 
battery of lenses, or of Professor Muybridge's remarkable 
motion-photographs of horses, there can be no question that 
it was Mr. Edison's researches and inventions which made 
the cinematograph practicable. It was in 1889 that the 
inventor began work on his kinetoscope camera, which he 
described in his specification as being " capable of producing 
an indefinite number of negatives on a single, sensitized, 
flexible film, at a speed heretofore unknown," but it was not 
until 1893 that Mr. Edison showed his invention to the pubhc 
at the Chicago World's Fair. Seven years later the moving- 
picture show, now known in America as " a movie," started 
on its phenomenal career, and at the moment of writing it is 



164 America of the Americans 

estimated that there are in the United States alone some 
thirty thousand cinematograph theatres, representing an 
industry with an annual revenue of fully $200,000,000 
(£40,000,000). 

Apart from the fact, as noticed in a previous chapter, that 

cinematograph entertainments have at least temporarily 

affected the profits of theatrical enterprise, 

Moving ^Y^Q movinej-picture has entirely changed the 
Pictures m , , , ^/ .... /. ^, 

Education. lecture platform situation, and is now trans- 
forming scientific and educational methods. 
For example, the St. Louis Medical Society recently utilised 
the cinematograph to illustrate the inoculation of animal 
with disease germs and their effect upon the blood, while at 
the World's Hygienic Congress at Washington was shown a 
remarkable series of microscopic moving pictures in explana- 
tion of the same subject. The use of moving pictures in the 
pubhc schools is being earnestly advocated by many educa- 
tional authorities, greatly to the approval of Mr. Edison, who 
has such unhmited faith in their teaching value that he says : 
'* I intend to do away with books in the school ; that is, I 
mean to try to do away with school-books. When we get 
the moving pictures in the school, the child will be so interested 
that he will hurry to get there before the bell rings, because 
it's the natural way to teach through the eye. I have half 
a dozen fellows writing scenari now on A and B." It appears 
that Mr. Edison has planned his moving-picture curriculum 
on the basis of an eight-year course, and that he expects 
to make a beginning next year. 

In view of the enormous interest now taken in the cine- 
matograph, it is not surprising that Mr. Edison has impressed 
his personality upon his fellow-countrymen 
T. A. Edison, as one who has *' got results " ; but the 
cinematograph is only one of his triumphs. 
When but twelve years old he, while serving as a newspaper 
boy on the Detroit railroad, utilised every spare moment 
in making electrical experiments, and after his promotion to 



Invention and Science 165 

the work of a telegraph operator in his fifteenth year he often 
neglected his duties to pursue some fancy of his fertile brain. 
His first notable achievement was the invention of an auto- 
matic repeater for telegraphic messages, and a little later he 
constructed a printing telegraph for stock quotations which 
enriched him by $40,000. Since he estabhshed his laboratory 
and workshop at West Orange, N. J., he has kept up a constant 
supply of novel appHances, including the microtasimeter, for 
the detection of small changes in temperature ; the mega- 
phone, for magnifying sound ; the phonograph, for recording 
and reproducing all kinds of sounds ; etc., etc. Altogether 
he has secured patents for more than 700 inventions ! 

According to the opinion of most competent authorities, 

American supremacy in invention is not entirely due to the 

inquisitiveness of the national temperament ; 

American some part of that pre-eminence, they assert. 

Attitude must be credited to the wisdom of the authors 
towards the ^ , ^ . . /^ . t i 

Inventor. of the Constitution. Certainly there is a 

marked difference between the English and 

the American view of the inventor, for while the former takes 

the public interest most into account the latter is more 

concerned with the reward of the individual. Congress, so 

the Constitution affirms, is to have power to " promote the 

progress of science and useful arts, by securing, for Hmited 

times, to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their 

respective writings and discoveries " ; and Lincoln once 

declared that the patent system of the United States " added 

the fuel of interest to the fire of genius, in the discovery and 

production of new and useful things." This is somewhat 

fatal to Professor Van Dyke's ideafistic view of the American 

inventor, but there is no avoiding the conclusion that the 

abnormal inventive activity of the United States is largely 

owing to the remunerative effect of the patent law of the 

nation. In recent years, however, a serious assault has been 

made upon that law in the interests of communism, the effect 

of which, if successful, would be to weaken that inducement, 



166 America of the Americans 

that " fuel of interest," which has counted for so much 
in the stimulation of invention. The charges, so often made, 
that wealthy trusts are in the habit of buying inventions for 
the sole purpose of suppressing them in the interests of their 
own patents, are emphatically denied by so good an authority 
as Mr. Edison. 

As sufficient evidence has been adduced to show that, in the 

main, the American inventor shares the human weakness for 

lucre, it may now be safely admitted that 

^InllntSnT ^^^^^ ^^ ^* ^^^^^ another motive for his 
ingenuity — the motive, that is, of contributing 
to the kind of knowledge which is not necessarily profitable. 
In the domain of astronomy, for example, American inven- 
tions and discoveries take the highest rank. Professor 
Edward C. Pickering, the veteran director of the Harvard 
Observatory, who estabhshed the first physical laboratory in 
the United States, is assured of a distinguished position in the 
annals of astronomy not merely for the efficiency with which 
he has administered his department at Harvard, but still 
more for his immeasurable contributions to stellar pho- 
tometry. When he addressed himself specially to that branch 
of science he was not long in discovering that there was no 
adequate instrument available, whereupon he experimented 
until he had designed that meridian photometer with which 
he has secured such remarkable results. Having, after a few 
years' experience, further perfected his instrument, he set 
himself the herculean task of a complete survey of both 
hemispheres, an undertaking which involved the erection of 
an observatory commanding the southern sky. Owing to 
Professor Pickering's forcible appeals, the money necessary 
for such an establishment was soon forthcoming, and the 
observatory was duly built at Arequipa, in the Andes, where 
it remains as a permanent branch of the Harvard Observatory. 
Between the two estabhshments upwards of 75,000 photo- 
graphs have been taken, in addition to the magnitudes of 
many thousands of stars being determined, resulting in many 



Invention and Science 167 

important discoveries, not merely of new and variable stars, 
but also of an entirely unknown type of double star. 

Nor is Professor Pickering by any means an isolated example 

of American devotion to pure science. His younger brother, 

William H. Pickering, is equally distinguished 

Astronomical ^^ ^^ astronomer, having to his credit, among 
other achievements, the discovery of the 
ninth and tenth satellites of Saturn, and the discovery of 
a planet lying beyond Neptune. It was the careful examina- 
tion of a photograph taken at the Arequipa Observatory which 
induced Professor Pickering to believe he had found the ninth 
satellite, but as the planet was passing through the Milky Way 
at the time the negative was secured, it was not until Saturn 
was clear of that constellation that he was able to verify 
his discovery ; and then he made the further novel discovery 
that the motion of that sateUite was retrograde, a phenomenon 
unique in the solar system. He has also rendered valuable 
service to science as the leader of many important solar 
observation expeditions. 

Among the other famous astronomers of the United States, 
Professor George E. Hale, a pupil of Edward C. Pickering, has 
achieved high distinction as an inventor and observer. His 
most important invention is the spectroheliograph, an 
instrument for photographing the sun with monochromatic 
hght, which revealed a new and unexplored aspect of the 
sun's atmosphere and provided much of the data for Professor 
Hale's invaluable contributions to the Astrophysical Journal ; 
but in addition to that remarkable instrument the director 
of the Mount Wilson solar observatory designed the 60-in. 
reflector, which is admitted to be the most perfect for astro- 
physical research. Naturally his chief contributions to science 
have been made in connection with solar spectroscopy, and 
these have been so notable that he has been elected a member 
of the leading astronomical societies of the world. 

While the renown of the foregoing observers is greater 
among experts than with the general public, another American 



168 America of the Americans 

astronomer, Professor Percival Lowell, has so specialised 
his work and expounded its results in so simple a manner 

that he has won considerable popular fame. 
Professor When he estabhshed his observatory at Flag- 
Mars, staff, in Arizona, which is situated 7,250 ft. 

above sea-level, it was with the special 
purpose of concentrating his attention on Mars, the planet 
which, as is well known, is the nearest to the earth, and hence 
most favourably placed for continuous study. He has not 
wholly neglected the other planets, but since 1894 Mars and 
its canals and other problems have occupied him so closely 
that he is recognised as the chief authority on that member of 
the solar system. His two books, also. Mars and its Canals 
and Mars as the Abode of Life, have been so distinguished 
for lucid exposition and sentimental interest that they have 
appealed to thousands to whom astronomy is usually a dead 
letter. It was the former of these which prompted Dr. Alfred 
R. Wallace's Is Mars Habitable ? in which the veteran natural- 
ist subjected the theories of the American astronomer to a 
critical examination, the conclusions of which, however, 
have been weakened by subsequent research. In the curiously 
regular lines which are so remarkable a feature of Mars, and 
which are so conspicuous in the photographs taken from the 
Flagstaff observatory. Professor Lowell sees indubitable 
evidence of design rather than natural causes, and argues from 
thence that the planet must be inhabited. Whatever the 
final conclusion may be, if indeed any definite conclusion is 
possible, the Martian researches and speculations of the 
American astronomer constitute one of the most fascinating 
romances of science. 

Modern astronomy as a whole, indeed, is greatly indebted 
to American research. While in Great Britain and France 

the pubhc observatories only number a dozen 
American ^^^ ^^^^i country, there are no fewer than 

thirty-three in the United States, twenty- 
three of which are affiliated to universities or colleges as 



Invention and Science 169 

compared with the half-dozen connected with British uni- 
versities. Several of the American observatories are world- 
famous, for the Lick and Yerkes institutions are as well- 
known as that at Greenwich ; and in the matter of structure 
and instrumental equipment the observatories of the United 
States have no superiors. For example, the hydraulic plat- 
form of the Lick observatory is a unique construction, and 
the largest refracting telescope in active use is the 40-in. 
instrument at the Yerkes observatory, the magnificent objec- 
tive of which is an eloquent testimony to the excellence of 
native optical work. 

Should, however, the practical person object that the 
results of this astronomical activity are as remotely beneficial 
to humanity as the stars and planets with which they are 
concerned, he may be reminded that American interest in 
science also takes a severely utihtarian direction. The 
millionaires of the United States are often attacked in the 
genuine Limehouse style ; self-elected social reformers wax 
eloquent over their " tainted wealth " ; the yellow press 
excoriates them on any pretext or none ; but it may be ques- 
tioned whether in any other country there can be found a 
body of wealthy men more generous in gift or more resourceful 
in directing their donations to worthy ends. 

Much fun has been made of Andrew Carnegie's predilection 

for founding hbraries, and perhaps some of the wealth so 

absorbed might have been better employed in 

I ^t"hi?^^ assisting struggling authors, but no serious 
criticism has been directed against the Carne- 
gie Institution of Washington, which the steel magnate has 
endowed to the extent of $22,000,000 (£4,400,000). The 
objects of that institution are " to encourage in the broadest 
and most liberal manner investigation, research, and dis- 
covery, and the apphcation of knowledge to the improvement 
of mankind." This programme is carried out in various ways, 
chief among the means adopted being the ten departments 
engaged in continuous research. Investigation is being pursued 



170 America of the Americans 

in more than thirty different fields of knowledge, and the 
pubHcations of the institution akeady constitute a consider- 
able library. Among the subjects which are being examined 
with unusual thoroughness are botany, economics, and socio- 
logy, experimental evolution, marine biology, and nutrition, 
and in every case the practical ideals of the institution are 
kept in the forefront. For example, the amazing horticultural 
work of Luther Burbank has been connected with one of the 
departments, thus ensuring that the plant-breeding of that 
botanical wizard shall in future be prosecuted under the best 
conditions. Mr. Burbank has already originated innumerable 
new apples, plums, peaches, nuts, grasses, grains, vegetables 
and flowers, but now that he can draw upon the resources 
and funds of the Carnegie Institution he will probably excel 
all his previous triumphs. 

Another milhonaire, and probably the most abused man of 
his class in the United States, John D. Rockefeller, in addition 

to fabulous gifts to colleges and universities, 
fnstftuSon'' ^^^ endowed that Rockefeller Institution for 

Medical Research in which Dr. Alexis Carrel 
was quietly working when he was awarded the Nobel prize 
in medicine. When surprise was expressed that one of the 
leading speciahsts of France should be pursuing his investiga- 
tions in an American laboratory. Dr. Carrel explained that the 
Rockefeller Institution provided unrivalled facilities for 
medical research — a testimony which is an ample tribute to 
the equipment of the estabhshment. But the institution is 
already justified by its results. Apart from the marvels 
achieved by Dr. Carrel in the surgery of the arteries and in 
the transplanting of organs from one body to another, the 
glory of which is at least partly due to France, Dr. Simon 
Flexner's serum treatment of cerebro-spinal meningitis would 
be honour enough for a laboratory which was only founded in 
1901. The Flexner remedy for that fell disease has been so 
successful that in cases where the serum has been injected 
during the first week of the attack the mortality has been 



Invention and Science 171 

reduced to 18 per cent. In addition to conferring such a boon 
on humanity, Dr. Flexner has also discovered the organism 
which causes infantile paralysis. Nor should it be forgotten 
that another of his colleagues at the Rockefeller Institution, 
Dr. Peyton Rous, gives excellent promise of solving the 
problem of the cause of cancer, his researches appearing to 
establish the parasite theory. 

Not content with the excellent work of his institution, 
Mr. Rockefeller a few years ago also gave $1,000,000 (£200,000) 
for the endowment of a medical commission 
H k ^^ investigate the hookworm and its enervat- 

ing disease. Thereby hangs a story greatly 
to the credit of Dr. Charles W. Stiles, the director of zoology 
in the Hygienic Laboratory. For a time the hookworm was 
regarded as a scientific joke. And it added another word to 
the American vocabulary. Because the parasite was said 
to diminish the working capacity of its victim, it became a 
byword that an indolent man was suffering " from an attack 
of the hookworm." But Dr. Stiles had the last laugh. By 
irrefutable evidence he showed that the hookworm, happily 
christened necator Americanus, was a stubborn entity ; that 
it was equipped with a mouth having six incurving teeth, 
whereby it fixed itself to the intestinal mucous membrane, 
and sucked away the blood ; that the victim of the parasite 
became anaemic, lost all ambition, and was able to perform 
only a hmited amount of work ; and that the disease had been 
contracted by at least 2,000,000, including many of the " poor 
whites " of the South. When these facts were estabhshed, it 
was seen that the hookworm was an important obstacle to 
the prosperity of the Southern States, for in addition to it 
sapping the energy of the " poor whites," it helped to explain 
the small learning capacity of negro children. Hence 
Mr. Rockefeller's generous gift towards combating the 
parasite may well prove to be among the most beneficent of 
his many bequests. 

But to return for a moment to medical research. For some 



172 America of the Americans 

unaccountable reason chloroform is far better known than 
ether, yet the latter anaesthetic was in use prior to chloro- 
form, and its discovery and practical appli- 

Anaesthetics. cation have to be placed to the credit of 
American doctors. It is true that the proper- 
ties of ether seem to have been known for many generations, 
and that it had been employed for various purposes prior to 
the last century, but it has been truthfully said that 
interest in it was empirical until Dr. Horace Wells, of 
Hartford, Connecticut, in 1844, allowed himself to be experi- 
mented upon with the anaesthetic when having a tooth 
extracted. Two years later, another American doctor, 
Mr. T. G. Morton, made a still more daring apphcation of the 
vapour of ether in connection with a surgical operation, and 
from that day ether was recognised as an invaluable agent in 
relieving human suffering. Two other doctors, Crawford 
Long and Charles T. Jackson, are said to have had a share in 
this important discovery, but as they also were Americans 
the credit of the innovation belongs to the United States. 
If, too, chloroform is more widely known than ether, it is 
probably true that the latter is more generally used throughout 
the world, owing, it is claimed, to it being the safer anaesthetic. 

But American doctors have not been content with the 
introduction and practical application of ether ; they have 
devoted much research to the equally important matter of its 
innocuous use. It is common knowledge that some patients 
object to be operated upon while unconscious, and that others 
have succumbed on the operating-table owing to an overdose 
of an anaesthetic or its unsuitabihty to their systems. Both 
these problems have been successfully solved in the United 
States. For cases of the first-named category Dr. J. Leonard 
Corning devised his method of spinal anaesthesia, whereby, 
through the injection of cocaine into the neighbourhood of 
the spinal cord, merely local insensitiveness to pain is pro- 
duced ; and the more serious difficulty of safe-guarding the 
use of an anaesthetic has been overcome by Dr. S. J. Meltzer, 



Invention and Science 173 

of the Rockefeller Institution, who has discovered a perfectly 
safe method of administering ether directly to the lungs, 
** The advantage of this method," it has been pointed out, 
" is that it makes the use of ether fool-proof. When this 
method is used it is impossible to kill a patient with ether. 
Dehberate experimental attempts to kill dogs have invariably 
failed." Much might be added to this brief resume of the 
past and more recent achievements of American medical 
science, which have included such classical triumphs as 
Dr. W. Beaumont's study of the mechanism of digestion, and 
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes's discovery of the contagious 
nature of puerperal fever, but enough has been recorded to 
indicate what large additions have been made to the world's 
remedial knowledge by the physicians of the United States. 
It should be added, too, that the surgeons of that land are 
equally in the forefront of their profession. 

One other typical example of applied science may be selected 

from the domain of entomology. Those who can recall the 

consternation which was created in the rural 

Entomofo^gy. districts of England some years ago by the 
advent of the Colorado beetle, will be able 
to appreciate the seriousness of an insect plague in a country 
so largely agricultural as America. Although the Colorado 
beetle, which was first observed in 1859, commits great hovoc 
on the leaves of the potato and tomato, it has been so neglected 
that from the Rocky Mountains it has spread all over the 
United States and Canada, and is now probably immune from 
extinction. Of recent years two other insect pests have 
created serious alarm in New England, namely, the brown-tail 
moth and the gipsy moth, and their ravages have been so 
excessive that the Government has addressed itself to the 
herculean task of their destruction. 

Some idea of the stupendous nature of that task may be 
attained when it is remembered that the infested area exceeds 
5,000 square miles in which there are countless woodlands, 
orchards, and many thousands of miles of tree-lined roads. 



174 America of the Americans 

A single wall will yield moth nests by the thousand, for fifty 
or sixty clusters of eggs have been found on one stone less than 
a foot in diameter. Hatching in such secure places, cater- 
pillars swarm to feed on the ever-present brush, and later 
ascend the trees overhanging the road, from whence they spin 
down in myriads on to passing vehicles, by which they are 
transported far and wide to form new colonies. The devas- 
tation wrought by these pests is almost incredible ; they 
attack fruit and shade and forest trees and ornamental shrubs 
indiscriminately, and when unmolested leave them ruined and 
desolate. Photographs taken in the height of summer, when 
the trees and shrubs should be thickly clothed with verdure, 
show the woodlands and orchards in the stark, leafless condition 
of the depth of winter. 

Two methods have been adopted in waging warfare on these 
destructive moths. The first plan involved a large army of 
field workers, who at different seasons of the year cut out 
and burnt the infested trees, or burlapped or sprayed them, 
or creosoted the nests, or crushed the caterpillars or pupae. 
These operations, however, involved a heavy cost, no less 
than $210,679 having been spent in a single season. Con- 
sequently the government entomologists addressed them- 
selves to the problem of discovering a more economical remedy, 
and their researches at length convinced them that such a 
remedy could be obtained if they could find and breed para- 
sites which would prey upon the eggs of the moths. In pursuit 
of such parasites an expert of the Bureau of Entomology made 
a special journey to Europe, travelling widely in France, 
Italy, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, and making 
arrangements for the exportation of such natural enemies of 
the moths as he was able to discover. In all 117,257 webs 
containing parasites were collected, an experiment wholly 
without precedent in the annals of apphed entomology. It is 
too early to pronounce whether this method will be entirely 
successful, but up to the present the results have been 
satisfactory. 



Invention and Science 175 

Many other illustrations of American ingenuity and enter- 
prise in the application of science to practical ends could be 
adduced, but the foregoing must suffice in view of Hmitations 
of space. A native humorist once remarked of a certain old 
lady that she was so inquisitive that she put her head out of 
all the front windows of the house at the same time. But 
that is a national trait ; the American looks out of all the 
windows of the house of life with a healthy curiosity. 



CHAPTER X 

AMERICA AT WORK 

America has an unenviable pre-eminence in the divorce 
statistics of the world. With the exception of Japan, it 

leads all the other nations, its annual average 
'^Hustrin^^'"*' amounting to seventy-three in every 1 00,000 of 

the population. Why ? The answers to that 
question are countless, including disquisitions on the low view 
of marriage and the laxity of divorce laws ; but if we are to 
accept the testimony of innumerable novels and plays one 
of the chief causes may be found in the fact that the American 
business man is too absorbed in making money to give his 
wife that attention which is the best cement of the marital 
relation. That defect in the business man is insisted upon to 
weariness. He is depicted in such a feverish hunt after the 
almighty dollar that he has no time to eat his meals, much 
less for cultivating the society of his wife and children. He is 
" husthng " from dawn to sunset ; for him there is no exist- 
ence save the " strenuous life." There is a tradition, in fact, 
that the common exhortation of the American mother to her 
son is : " Put on a speedometer and hustle. The main thing 
is speed. Never mind where you are going to get to ; if you 
only keep going, you are bound to get somewhere." Con- 
sequently there is a general impression all over the world 
that the American works harder and for longer hours than any 
human being. 

That tradition is fostered by many native writers. Thus 
it is asserted that the " general pace of life " in the United 

States astonishes and sometimes annoys the 
^T ^^^-^^^^^ European visitor. " There is a rushing tide 

of life in the streets, a nervous tension in the 
air. Business is transacted with swift dispatch and close 

176 



America at Work 177 

attention." Farther, we are assured that every American 
hangs over his desk a motto to the effect, " This is my busy 
day." He does not, this eulogist continues, " Hke to arrive 
at the railway station fifteen minutes before the departure 
of his train, because he has something else that he would 
rather do with those fifteen minutes. He does not like to 
spend an hour in the barber-shop, because he wishes to get 
out to his country club," etc., etc. One of these examples 
of the " strenuous life " is unfortunately chosen, as will be 
obvious to any who have had personal acquaintance with an 
American barber-shop. Those estabhshments are certainly 
models of their kind in the matter of equipment ; their 
comfortable chairs, their ample mirrors, their cleanliness, 
their manifold machinery and implements, are beyond 
reproach ; but there is no country in the world where the 
process of having " a shave " is so compHcated and protracted 
an operation as in an American barber-shop. If the victim 
also indulges in a hair-cut and a shampoo he may count himself 
fortunate if he is released inside of an hour. 

One of the daily incidents of life which is a constant puzzle 

to the European visitor who is supposed to be annoyed by the 

" general pace "* of existence is connected 

The Question ^^l\l the matter of boot-cleaning. In so 

Boot-cleaning, democratic a country it might be imagined 

that all labour, even boot-cleaning, would be 

held in equal honour. But that is not the case. For some 

reason which has never been explained, the average American 

domestic servant absolutely refuses to have anything to do 

j with dirty footgear, while in the American hotel there is no 

j functionary answering to the *' boots " of the EngHsh hostelry. 

! If the inexperienced European visitor places his boots outside 

his bedroom door when he retires he will find them in the same 

position and condition the following morning. Boot-cleaning 

is regarded as such a menial occupation that it is relegated 

to the " dago," that is, the poor Italian immigrant, who 

consequently does a thriving business at his " shine-parlour." 

12— (2393A) 



178 America of the Americans 

But that is where the amazing waste of time comes in ; the 
American who is, as we are told, so sparing of his minutes will 
squander fifteen of them every day to sit in his boots while 
they are being polished. 

Perhaps a more rational view of American activity is 
supplied by the confession of a native that his fellow- 

countr3rmen " pretend to be fast, but when we 
A Candid ^^^ going at our topmost speed we forget 

where we started out to go to." They acted, 
he added, and then thought, whereas the Briton thought and 
then acted. The same impartial observer also stated that 
there are only Httle differences between countries, and that 
the stores of all lands had the same goods. 

In the matter of stores, however, he might have made an 
exception in favour of the United States. They have no equal 

in the world. What the Englishman calls 
^S^"*^^" a shop the American speaks of as a " store," 

and the nomenclature is further classified 
by such terms as grocery store, hardware store, book store, 
dry-goods store, or department store. Even in the small 
towns or in the suburbs of the large cities the grocery stores 
may be commended to the imitation of the whole world. 
For the systematic display of goods, the amazing variety of 
articles, the general appearance of brightness, and for the 
spotless aprons of the assistants these shops deserve the high- 
est praise. Occasionally, in the great cities, some of these 
grocery stores also undertake restaurant business, and it 
would be difficult to imagine more enjoyable breakfasts or 
light luncheons than those suppHed in such an estabhshment 
as Acker's in Philadelphia. The balcony of that sumptuously- 
appointed building is reserved for morning and mid-day 
repasts, and the meals there served must be an excellent 
recommendation for the articles purveyed at the counters 
downstairs. 

But it is the department store which is the chief glory of 
the American retail system. It is many shops in one. And 



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America at Work 179 

that fact may easily lead the casual visitor to a hasty and 
false generahsation. The book-lover, for example, may think 
his preferences neglected ; he will wander 
^^^ ^torf"^^"* ^^^^^ *^^ ^^^^ Streets of the large cities with- 
out finding as many book shops as his experi- 
ence in other lands would lead him to expect ; and from that he 
will be tempted to the hasty conclusion that for its size America 
is more deficient in book shops than any country in the world. 
But he will have reckoned without the department store. 
In every emporium of that type one section is devoted to 
a huge stock of current and standard literature, where, on 
occasional " sale " days, it is possible to pick up some amazing 
bargains. Of course, there are shops devoted solely to the 
sale of books, and they compare favourably with the kindred 
shops of any country ; but in the main the bulk of the book- 
seUing of the United States is carried on under the roof of the 
department store. 

Some of those stores are as much national institutions as 
the Capitol at Washington. And not a few of them are 
housed in structures which are a credit to the 
,„ ^^^ . architecture of their respective cities. Among 
Stores. the most famous are the Wanamaker stores m 
Philadelphia and New York and the Marshall 
Field and Company store in Chicago, all of them monuments 
to that " self-made " wealth which is so characteristic of the 
country. John Wanamaker, the owner of the first named, 
began his romantic career as an errand-boy at the age of 
fourteen, but in his twenty-third year launched out in business 
on his own account, and is now in the front rank of the wealthi- 
est merchants of America. In harmony with the fact that his 
j errand-boy days were spent in a book store, Mr. Wanamaker's 
book department at Philadelphia has always been fostered with 
special care, one phase of which is represented by the pubHca- 
tion of the Book News Monthly, a periodical originally 
pubHshed specially in the interests of the store-book section 
but now, under the capable editorship of Mrs. Norma Bright 



180 America of the Americans 

Carson, enjoying a national circulation as an effective exponent 

of literature. 

Marshall Field, the founder of the Chicago store of that 

name, was in his seventeenth year before he began his business 

hfe as an assistant in a small dry-goods store 

J^f ^. , . in New Enerland. Four years later the possi- 

Marshall Field ,.,._,. , ^° . .^-^ ,^, . x x j 

Store. bihties of the growmg city of Chicago tempted 

him to seek his fortune there, and in less than 
a decade he had estabhshed the business which was to grow 
to such phenomenal proportions. His genius for organisation 
and for divining the pubHc taste was such that during the 
period from 1871 to 1895 the annual takings of the store were 
increased from $12,000,000 to upwards of $40,000,000! 
The present twelve-story retail building, which has basement 
salerooms descending more than forty-three feet below the 
street level, was completed in 1906, and contains a total area 
of floor space exceeding fifty-five acres. Some of the figures 
connected with the conduct of this huge business are almost 
incredible, the great basement sale-room with its 170,844 
square feet of space being the largest single room of its class 
in the world, while the 35,000 automatic sprinklers to safe- 
guard against fire, the telephone exchange with its average 
of 30,000 calls a day, the 427,500 square feet of Wilton carpet 
in the retail sections, the daily average of some 200,000 
customers, the electric light system of 26,000 lamps, the 
thirty miles of tubing to convey sales slips to the counting- 
house, and the army of more than 15,000 employees are 
eloquent testimony to the business conducted under this single 
roof. 

Of course, there are some " lines of goods," such as grocery 
for example, which have no representation in the Marshall 
Field store, but within its limitations as a dry-goods estab- 
lishment its stock is exhaustive. Summer furniture or fur- 
niture in oak, china and glassware in bewildering variety, art 
ware of the choicest designs, dress goods and silks and linens, 
hosiery and shoes, French and domestic lingerie, specialty 



America at Work 181 

clothing and upholstery — such are some of the leading sections 
of the store, which, in fine, deals in practically everything from 
a packet of pins to a set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. It 
is, indeed, a permanent but always changing exhibition of the 
world's industries and productions. 

When such stores are available in the big cities of the 

United States it is hardly surprising that the American 

woman has developed a passion for shopping. 

The American g^^ j^ 15 ^ot always shopping with a serious 

Shopping. intent. The Marshall Field store, for example, 

is a typical illustration of what an incentive 

to aimless indolence such an establishment can be. The 

visitor is not pestered with " What can I show you, madam ? " 

on the contrary, she is allowed to roam hither and thither at 

\ her own inclination, making the smallest purchases or none at 

I all ; and when she grows weary of that tiring occupation there 

I are rest-rooms, and music-rooms, and writing-rooms to which 

I she can retire, without charge, to recuperate or discharge the 

I debts of her private correspondence. In fact, a typical 

j department store, apart from its collective facilities for 

I purchasing, furnishes the women of America with all the 

1 advantages and none of the expenses of a well-appointed 

* club. 

! But the department store — again within its Hmitations — 
j is also a microcosm of the industrial life of America, an 
I exposition of the finished products of native raw materials. 
j What it lacks of a representative character of the full cycle 
1 of American industry is provided by the grocery, hardware, 
j and other stores which supplement its deficiencies. 

Because, however, American manufactures bulk so largely 

j in the markets of the world, it is often forgotten that after 

all the United States is primarily an agri- 

RurarNSion ^^1*^^3,1 country. Its ambassador to the 

court of St. James's has reminded us quite 

recently that to understand American democracy it is neces- 

jsary to " keep in mind the millions that dwell on the soil 

i 



182 America of the Americans 

and in small towns ; the inhabitants of the great valleys of 
the Mississippi River and of its chief tributaries. Take it 
through and through, the nation is as yet a rural nation ; 
and it is the countryside who really rule it." This statement 
is confirmed by statistics. The table of population as it is 
divided among various industrial occupations shows that 
more than thirty-five per cent, of America's millions are 
engaged in agriculture as compared with nine per cent., the 
next highest on the list, employed in commerce. Again, if 
exports be taken as the test it will be found on a rough cal- 
culation that whereas iron and steel manufactures, the highest 
on the list, represent a sum of $304,605,797, the farm products 
represent nearly $9,000,000,000. Hence there is profound 
truth in the assertion that the chief manufacture of the 
United States prior to 1900 was the manufacture of 5,740,000 
farms, comprising 841,200,000 acres. According to the latest 
figures, the total of farms is now 6,361,502, representing an 
acreage of 878,798,325, while the wealth produced on those 
farms in 1910 amounted to $8,926,000,000. The total wealth 
of the country has been estimated at $130,000,000,000, of 
which farms and buildings and implements represent upwards 
of $36,000,000,000. The foregoing figures help to justify 
the confession of a candid American to the effect that his 
was a prosperous country, " not because we have good govern- 
ment, or because we are more industrious than other people, 
but because we are so rich in natural resources." 

When the statistics of America's progress in agriculture 
are carefully examined, it will be found that the last genera- 
tion has witnessed an increase of output enormously in excess 
of previous averages. That result is largely due to the 
labour-saving machinery now available. At the beginning 
of this century the spacious farms of the Pacific States began 
to be ploughed and harrowed and sown in a single operation, 
while the harvest is now gathered by a machine which cuts, 
threshes, cleans and sacks all at the same time. This has 
resulted in an immense saving in the cost and time of 



America at Work 183 

producing the crops, leading to an ever-increasing area of land 
being brought under cultivation. 

Naturally these conditions have had the most marked 
effect in connection with the leading cereal crop of the United 

States, namely, Indian corn, otherwise maize, 
^Corn" ^^' ^^ *^^ phraseology of the country, simply 

" corn." When the American farmer speaks 
of " corn " he does not mean wheat, or rye, or barley, or oats ; 
to him " corn " is always and only Indian corn or maize. 
And maize, as stated above, is the chief farm product of the 
country. That crop has been well characterised as the back- 
bone of American agriculture. In half a century, namely, 
from 1850 to 1900, the crop increased from 592,071,104 
bushels to 2,105,102,516 bushels. The supreme value of this 
crop became at length to be so thoroughly appreciated that in 
1907 a National Corn Exposition took its place among the 
chief annual events of the country, large prizes being offered 
to stimulate the best methods of cultivation. About that 
date American farmers became imbued with the ambition 
to reach the three billion bushel mark, and it was hoped that 
the crop of 1909 would attain those dimensions. This 
expectation seemed reasonable in view of the fact that in the 
previous year the acreage under cultivation was the largest 
area devoted to a single crop in any country in the world. 
It was not, however, until 1912 that the harvest reached the 
three billion mark, the exact total for that season being 
3,124,746,000 bushels. It is significant of America's supre- 
macy in the production of maize that Argentina, the country 
holding the second place in the world's growth of maize, only 
produced 295,849,000 bushels. In 1913 the American crop 
dropped by more than five hundred milHon bushels, but 
even then the area under cultivation exceeded 100,000,000 
acres, while the farm value of the crop was $1,741,353,019. 
On an average about 80 per cent, of the corn crop is used 
on the farms of the country, while of the remainder vast 
quantities are utihsed in flour and grist-mill products, in the 



184 America of the Americans 

manufacture of starch, in distilling, or for glucose. Nor should 
it be forgotten that in its green state maize is largely used as 
a vegetable. 

Those who are surprised to learn that maize is the most 
important crop of American farms will perhaps anticipate 
that wheat must take the second place, 
Cotton. whereas in truth it is cotton instead of wheat 
which comes next in importance. Yet in 
1800 there were only 153,509 bales of cotton produced in the 
United States, as compared with the 14,090,863 bales pro- 
duced in 1912. America, indeed, is by far the largest cotton- 
producing country of the world, for the comparative statistics 
of 1907 showed that the United States was responsible for 
more than 65 per cent, of the output of the entire world. 
In value, and apart from by-products, the cotton crop of 1911 
represented $732,490,000. For the same year the cotton 
seed was valued at $127,420,000. It will be seen, then, that 
cotton is nearly three times the value of the iron and steel 
manufactures. 

America's pre-eminence as the cotton-growing country of 
the world has been so severely tested that it is hardly likely 
to be successfully challenged in the future. At the time of 
the Civil War, by which period the cotton manufacturing 
countries had come to rely upon the United States as the chief 
source of their supplies, there was such an alarming faUing-off 
of the output that Manchester suffered a disastrous cotton 
famine. Hence a determined effort was made not so much to 
capture America's cotton trade as to experiment on the cotton- 
producing capabilities of other lands. In Egypt, India, 
Turkey, Greece, Africa and thirty other countries efforts were 
made to counterbalance the shortage of the American supply, 
but a decade later, at the exhibition of 1872, very few of those 
thirty-five countries were able to show samples of cotton 
growth, and a few years later the United States had once 
again taken the lead. It has never since lost it. And the 
possibiUties for future increase in the output are enormous, 




Photo by Underjuood & Underjfood 

A COTTON- PICKING SCENE, GEORGIA 



America at Work 185 

for of the 448,000,000 acres suitable for the growth of cotton 
it is estimated that only about one acre in fifteen has yet been 
devoted to the cultivation of that crop. 

While in 1913 exports of unmanufactured and manu- 
factured cotton were of the value of $547,357,195 and 
$53,743,977 respectively, those figures by no means indicate 
the value of the crop in its entirety. Much of it was retained 
for home consumption in the manufacture of plain cloths, 
brown or bleached sheetings and shirtings, twills and sateens, 
fancy woven fabrics, drills, yarns and thread, etc., etc., the 
total value of which cotton goods for 1909 was $628,391,813. 

Even those astonishing figures, however, do not exhaust 

the monetary value of America's cotton crop. They do not 

take into account the annual wealth repre- 

B -Products s^nt^d t>y the by-products. It has been 
estimated that for every 500 lb. of cotton there 
is a residue of 1,000 lb. of cotton seed, hence given a crop of 
10,000,000 bales of 500 lb. each, there would remain 5,000,000 
tons of seed. Now some forty years ago that seed was regarded 
as a nuisance. " It was left to accumulate in vast heaps about 
ginhouses, to the annoyance of the farmer and the injury 
of his premises. Cotton seed in those days was the object of 
so much aversion that the planter burned it or threw it into 
running streams, as was most convenient. If the seed were 
allowed to lie about, it rotted, and hogs and other animals, 
eating it, often died. It was very difficult to burn, and when 
dumped into rivers and creeks was carried out by flood water 
to fill the edges of the flats with a decaying and offensive mass 
of vegetable matter." A few years after the Civil War, 
however, cotton-seed mills began to increase in number, and 
to-day the by-products of America's second important crop 
include refined oil, cotton-seed cake, and hulls. The oil is 
used for many purposes, such as a substitute for ohve oil, 
for soap and candles, and for miners' lamps ; the cake has 
proved a most valuable feeding stuff for cattle-fattening ; 
and the hulls are almost as valuable for cattle-feeding. For 



186 America of the Americans 

the year ending in the June of 1909 out of nearly six million 
tons of seed 3,669,747 tons were manufactured, giving 
146,789,880 gallons of oil, 1,491,752 tons of cake and meal, 
and 1,330,283 tons of hulls. Of those quantities the exports 
alone of oil and cake and meal represented a value of 
$29,115,866. In other words, the cotton seed which in 
earlier days had been burnt or thrown into rivers now 
represents the princely sum of nearly £6,000,000 ! 

Further, the manufacture of that proportion of the cotton 
crop which is not exported keeps upwards of 31,000,000 
spindles busy in the mills, gi\'ing employment to nearly 
400,000 workers. That is the direct result of cotton manu- 
facture ; the indirect additions to the industry of the country 
are bej^ond estimation, for they would have to take account 
of such untabulated factors as the wages of wholesale and 
retail buyers, the cost of transit, the rent of stores, the wages 
of assistants, etc., etc. But enough has been said to explain 
why the cotton crop of the United States takes so high a rank 
in its agricultural products. 

Apart from cotton, and leaving out of account maize and 

other cereals, the list of the farm products of the United 

States amounts to forty-six items. And the 

Other Farm ^^.^^ j^^^ ^^ ^j^^^ hst.'both for number and 
Products. , ^ . . , , ,. , . J. 

value, is occupied by live stock. Accordmg 

to the figures of the latest census, the cattle, horses, mules, 

sheep and lambs, and swine enumerated on the farms in 

1910 represented a total of 206,643,069 and a value of 

$5,296,421,619. Of these a considerable proportion were, 

of course, raised specially for slaughter. In the year pre\aous 

to the census, the exports of meat products were valued at 

$129,134,168, the various items including canned and fresh 

beef, tallow, bacon, hams and shoulders, canned and fresh 

pork, and lard. 

Hence agriculture is responsible for one of the biggest 

industries of the country, which is represented in its largest 

development by the famous stock-yards and packing-houses 



America at Work 187 

of Chicago. Those stock-^'ards and packing-houses are faith- 
fully included among the " attractions " of the wdndy city, 

and, thanks to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, 
Meat ^^g notorious throughout the world. For 

at the time Mr. Smclair ^^TOte his socio- 
logical novel the conditions of filth, horror, and immorahty 
which prevailed in the Chicago meat packing-houses were 
a scandal to a ci\-ihsed nation. Such was the sensation, 
indeed, created by the revelations of The Jungle that the 
Federal government at once appointed a commission of 
inquir\', the report of which was ample justification of ^Ir. 
Sinclair's impeachment. Both outside and inside the build- 
ings the commissioners discovered filthy and unsanitary 
conditions of a horrible nature. The interiors of the wooden 
buildings were " soaked and sHmy " ; light and ventilation 
were wTetched ; windows and walls reeked \vith grime ; tables 
and carts and tubs were covered with accumulations of meat 
scraps and grease ; and the workers generally toiled in a 
" humid atmosphere hea\y with the odours of rotten wood, 
decayed meat, stinking offal and entrails." The meat 
products, in fact, were being handled without regard for 
cleanliness of any kind. These revelations had an immediate 
effect upon the packing business as a whole, for whereas in 
1906 canned beef exports amounted to 64.523,359 lbs., in 
the follo\^-ing year they had dropped to 15,809,826 lbs. The 
same effect was ob\'ious in the canned pork, the 13,444,438 lbs. 
of 1906 being represented the follov^ing vear bv onlv 
2.710,369 lbs. 

O^ing to more stringent governmental inspection and to 
certain improvements in the packing-houses, these exports 

have sho\^'n a tendency to recover something 
Stock'^vards ^^ their former imponance, but it will be 

long ere they reach the proportions which 
prevailed before the pubhcation of The Jungle. For those 
who are not squeamish, however, the stock-yards and packing- 
houses of Chicago are a remarkable " sight," and present 



188 America of the Americans 

a vivid picture of a section of American industry. One of 
the most remarkable features of the stock-yard or the packing- 
house consists in the innumerable ingenious devices for saving 
labour or " speeding up " the various processes of slaughtering 
or packing. Of those devices perhaps the most characteristic 
is the huge revolving hog- wheel of the rhyme, 



Round goes the wheel 

To the music of the squeal. 



This massive wheel is fitted with half-a-dozen chains by which 
the pigs, from the pen beneath, are swung up to an incHned 
rod by their hind legs, passing at a given point down that 
rod by the force of gravitation and being killed in their passage 
by one swift thrust of a knife. The countless uses to which 
all parts of hog carcases are put justify the Chicago claim that 
" nothing is wasted except the squeal." 

But apart from the canning business, Chicago is the chief 
slaughter-house of America. It has a large share in that 
exportation of fresh beef, which in 1909 amounted to 
122,952,671 lbs., but in addition, since the introduction of 
the refrigerator railway car, its proportion of the slaughtering 
business of the United States has increased to nearly 30 
per cent. Cattle killed here, indeed, are sent as dressed meat 
to all parts of the Union. 

In the hst of farm products mentioned above fruits and 

nuts account for numerous entries, including apples, apricots, 

small and sub-tropical fruits, grapes, nuts, 

"Peanuts." peaches and nectarines, peanuts, and pears. 
All these are grown in immense quantities, 
apples being represented by 146,122,318 bushels, small fruits 
by 426,565,863 quarts, and grapes by 2,571,065,205 lbs. The 
export value of fruits and nuts for 1913 is given as $37,079,102. 
A thoroughly typical product of American horticulture is 
provided by the peanut crop, which in 1910 amounted to 
19,415,816 bushels, and was valued at $18,271,929. The 
name " peanut " will be misleading to the Enghsh reader. 




Photo by Underwood & Underwood 

THE COOLING ROOM : A CHICAGO PACKING HOUSE 



America at Work 189 

An Englishman on his first visit to the United States became 
so enamoured of peanut flavour and so charmed with what he 
imagined was a novelty, that he carried a large sample back 
with him to his native land, only to discover that in the poorer 
districts of England it was perfectly familiar to children as 
the " monkey-nut." But in America the peanut is largely 
eaten by all classes, and nearly every fruit shop has at its doors 
the puffing little peanut oven, from which in the colder weather 
the sales of the roasted nuts are always brisk. 

Florida and California are the chief States for the production 

of semi-tropical and sub-tropical fruits, though it was not until 

about 1875 that the former, the " Peninsula 

^'"f^" State," was discovered to be suitable for orange 

crowinc 

growth. Unfortunately, that discovery was 
not an unmixed blessing, for about a decade after orange 
growers had sunk a large amount of capital in that industry, 
I Florida was visited by a severe winter which ruined three- 
I fourths of the orange trees. Nevertheless, the fruit con- 
stituted the chief crop of 1908, the production of oranges and 
I lemons and limes and grape-fruits and guavas, etc., being 
I valued at $6,160,299. In one respect, namely, the cultivation 
I of the pineapple, Florida can claim an advantage over its 
rival State of the Pacific. In vegetables and other garden 
I produce, too, the Peninsula State's nearer proximity to the 
I markets of the East is Hkely to prove an important factor in 
I its future prosperity. 

! In the main, however, California holds the leading position 

j for horticulture, for in the season of 1909 that State marketed 

, more than 40,000 car loads of citrus fruits as compared with 

I Florida's 16,000 cars, and in the same season California 

I dispatched more than 13,000 cars of fresh deciduous fruits, 

; a shipment which established a record for the State. Cali- 

J fornia, indeed, has estabhshed its position as the leading 

fruit-growing district of the United States, for even so far 

back as 1899 it produced more than a fifth of the fruit of the 

entire Union. Its orange groves constitute one of the charms 



190 America of the Americans 

of its Southern landscape, their serried rows of trees with their 
deep green fohage and ripening fruits giving a deHghtful 
colour tone to many a prospect. But the State is not depend- 
ent upon its orange crop ; on the contrary, if that should fail 
it has immense reserves of wealth in its culture of prunes, 
olives, figs, lemons, citrons, walnuts, apricots, almonds, and 
grapes. The vineyards are gradually being developed into 
one of the most important industries, and it is affirmed that 
some of the best Californian wines are being paid the com- 
pliment of being sold in bottles bearing French labels. The 
State produces more than three-fourths of the wine output of 
the entire country. 

Another typical American industry connected with the 
land is that of lumbering, namely, the production of timber. 

And lumbering illustrates in its most pro- 
Lumbering, nounced form the American passion for reckless 

spoliation of natural resources. For example, 
it is officially estimated that apart from the amount destroyed 
by fires, some 20,000,000,000 cubic feet of timber are cut from 
the forests every year, but that of that enormous quantity 
only some 7,000,000,000 cubic feet are utilised. This means a 
sheer waste of 13,000,000,000 cubic feet of timber for every 
twelve months ! The lumberman, we are assured, takes only 
the choice trees, and only the choicest portion of each tree. 
Innumerable smaller trees are destroyed in felling the giants 
of the forests, while the discarded tops, high stumps, and the 
" wind-falls " are allowed to he on the ground to rot or start 
those devastating fires which are of such frequent occurrence. 
The forestry experts declare that as a result of this prodigal 
treatment the timber supply of the United States will be 
exhausted in about twenty years. Seeing that the rate of 
cutting is three times the annual growth, this prophecy is 
likely to be fulfilled unless the movement in favour of the 
conservation of the forests makes greater progress than it 
has done during the past few years. One explanation of this 
enormous consumption of timber is provided by the American 







en s: 



o 

2 



America at Work 191 

predilection for shingle houses which will probably not be 
overcome until the supply of wood fails ; another is furnished 
by the demands for wood pulp which are naturally increasing 
with the growth in the number and circulation of newspapers' 
As an industry lumbering undoubtedly contributes largely 
to the employment of labour and the augmentation of capital, 
but as pursued at present it is threatening extinction to one 
of the country's most profitable egg-laying geese. 

So reckless, too, is the present consumption of iron ore 

in blasting and in the manufacture of iron and steel products 

that the supply is expected to be exhausted 

j??^!^^^ in about a generation. The metal mines of 

America are now giving employment to 

165,979 workers, while in the blast furnaces and the iron and 

steel works are engaged an additional 278,505. As the 

products of the latter are estimated to represent a value of 

$1,776,165,000 it will be seen that this phase of American 

industry is a big factor in national prosperity. 

Other activities can be but briefly catalogued, for space is 
not available to give even the bare statistics of such industries 
as foundries and machine shops, flour and grist mills, printing 
and publishing, boot and shoe manufacture, copper smelting 
and refining, motor construction, furniture manufacture, etc., 
etc. It must suffice to note that the manufacturing industries 
of the United States give employment to nearly 7,000,000 
workers, and that their products plus the value added 
by manufacture represent the enormous sum of fully 
$30,000,000,000. 

Naturally this prodigious labour in so many fields entails 

a tremendous amount of carrying to and fro. It would be 

a waste of energy for California to grow its 

Transportation, fruits, or for Washington to cut its lumber, 

or for the cotton belt to cultivate its crops 

if it were not possible to distribute those products far and wide. 

Hence many thousands of Americans are ever busily at work 

in the transportation of the country's crops and manufactures. 



192 America of the Americans 

A part of that freight is carried on the waterways of the coun- 
try, which include the canals and the Great Lakes. Although 
the canals of the United States have been checked in their 
growth by railway competition and opposition there are still 
some 4,000 miles in use, while on the Great Lakes the ship- 
ments for 1911 amounted to 73,311,019 tons of cereals and 
minerals. But it is, of course, the vast railway system of 
America which deals with the bulk of the country's traffic, 
and the extent of the industry represented by that system 
can be imagined when it is remembered that of the total 
railway mileage of the world of 639,981 miles no fewer than 
240,238 are on American soil. According to the figures for 
1912, the various lines in the United States were served by 
61,250 locomotives, 50,606 passenger cars, and 2,203,128 
freight cars, in addition to which there were 114,924 cars in 
use for the company services of the system. The same sta- 
tistics show that 994,158,591 passengers were carried, that 
1,818,232,193 tons of freight were moved, and that the total 
revenue of the companies amounted to $2,826,917,967. 

But the foregoing figures are not the only amazing feature 
of American railway enterprise. As though to sustain the 
country's reputation for big things the accidents for 1912 
involved casualties of staggering proportions, the total of 
killed being 10,585, while the injured numbered 169,538! 
It should be added that these figures include the fatalities and 
injuries of railway employees as well as passengers, but even 
so they furnish ample justification for the severe native 
criticism which is continually directed against the methods 
responsible for such a terrible waste of Hfe. 

Apart from the danger of accident, and postulating that 

the journey is taken over some of the best -laid hnes of the 

country, railroad travelhng in America is 

TraveuSiff exceedingly enjoyable in the daytime. An 

American parlour-car is a drawing-room on 

wheels. Each passenger has his own luxurious easy chair 

which turns on a swivel to any point of the compass, the 



America at Work 193 

floor of the car is richly carpeted, the panelling is of the 
finest woods and artistically decorated, while the spacious 
plate-glass wdndows allow a clear view of the landscape. 
Then, at the end of the train, is the observation car with even 
more spacious windows and a platform outside from whence the 
passenger can survey a wide stretch of the receding country. 
The smoking cars and buffet cars are also beyond criticism. 
But a night journey on an American train is a different 
matter. No matter whether one has an upper or lower berth, 
the misery of cramped quarters and lack of ventilation is 
intolerable, while the necessity of having to undress in a 
passage which is a common thoroughfare suggests that 
America has not learnt the most elementary lessons of decency. 
Until the sleeping car is entirely remodelled the rolling-stock 
of the American railways, otherwise so far in advance of that 
of any other country, must suffer from a serious defect. 

Little can be said for American shipping, for although 
the country has one of the finest navies of the world, its- 
mercantile marine is so small that only some 
I Sloping! ^^ P^^ ^^°*- ^^ American produce is carried 
I * in native bottoms. In fact, the United 

, States has been described by one of its own sons as " The 
' nation without a ship." The same critic reminded his fellow- 
countrymen that when their navy went round the world and 
I the United States " whooped its gratulations till the welkin 
I rang," the government had to hire foreign colHers to chase the 
I fleet round the world with coal. But there is a growing 
i agitation for the building of an American marine, and perhaps 
the opening of the Panama Canal will carry that movement 
'to a triumphant issue. 



<, 13— (2393A) 



CHAPTER XI 

SOME TYPICAL CITIES 

Despite the evidence adduced in the previous chapter as to 
the existence of a rural America, there is no gainsaying the 
fact that from the perspective of other lands the United 
States is usually thought of as a country of great cities. For 
one who is aware of the existence of the cotton belt, or the 
wheat lands, or the lumber regions, thousands are famihar 
with New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and San 
Francisco. Those names, and not the spacious areas of 
agricultural districts, are the lures which appeal to the 
majority of immigrants or travellers. 

And there is a certain fitness in that fact. If it were not 
for the great cities of America the country as a whole would 
not be the household word of the world ; they 
Uniformity g^j-e its advertisement to the fortune-seeker, 
Cities. the men of business, and the tourist. Not- 
withstanding, however, that there are some 
thirty of those cities which can boast a population of more 
than 200,000 souls, they have a far greater uniformity than 
the same number of communities in any other land. If the 
visitor is in quest of variety and the picturesque he must 
seek it in rural rather than urban America. In the country 
districts of New England or the South he will find much to 
delight the eye — cosy homes with well-kept lawns and shady 
avenues, or porticoed houses and old-time negroes ; but as 
soon as he makes the acquaintance of a typical city he will 
have become familiar with the model which is largely redu- 
plicated all over the Union. The principal streets have a 
monotonous hkeness to each other ; the buildings seem to 
have been planned by the same architect ; the trolleys are of 

194 



I 



Some Typical Cities 195 

a standard pattern ; and even the meals set before him in 
hotels, boarding-houses and restaurants appear to have been 
ordered from one menu. 

Yet a closer acquaintance with these standardised cities wil 
reveal certain distinguishing features. They may be topo- 
graphical or social. Broadway and Fifth Avenue are peculiar 
to New York ; there is no Common comparable to that of 
Boston ; Pittsburg is unique for its " hell-with-the-hd-off " 
atmosphere ; Philadelphia is so conservative that it keeps the 
I Sabbath and plays cricket ; and Chicago boasts its hospitality 
towards the " latest " in art or literature. If, in fact one 
would divme the individuality of American cities it must be 
sought m subjective rather than objective regions. 
^ There are several New Yorks. And it is unfortunate for 
I the new-comer that the New York of his first impressions is 
Waterside "?* calculated to give him a flattering opinion 
j New York. ^^. American municipal government. He 
1 will have landed somewhere along the North 

I River, and then, having survived the fearsome ordeal of 
I customs examination, he will have before him a journev 
(through many "city blocks" ere reaching his hotel on 
^Broadway or Fourth Avenue. That cab drive will be an 
.effective antidote to any American boasting he may have 
.heard on his Atlantic voyage. There are, indeed, some 
Americans who plead that foreigners should be taken blindfold 
jor drugged from their ships in New York until they reach 
Washington Square or Broadway. For although their vessel 
pay have crossed the ocean without a lurch the hack ride 
from the pier will be full of perils. The streets between the 
Shabby water front and lower Fifth Avenue are not merely 
smelly and unkempt, but the holes in the asphalt and the 
Abysses m the wood-blocks and the protruding car-tracks are 
real danger to Hmb and hfe. It is probable, too, that the 
:ew-comer will be staggered by the extortion of the New York 
hack driver. Not only has he no local pride, but, on the 
estimony of the New York press, he is the worst cheat of 



196 America of the Americans 

the city, disgracing the metropolis by his efforts to swindle 
the stranger within its gates. 

But if the traveller takes up his abode in one of the excellent 
hotels which abound on Fourth Avenue or upper Broadway, 

the memory of his drive from the ship will 
^iTTT^" soon be modified by the comfort of his 

surroundings. For the hotels of the great 
American cities, that is, the $2.50 " and up " class, need not 
fear comparison with those of any city in the world. If 10s. 
seems a high minimum for a bedroom without any meals, 
it must be remembered that a bedroom of that price also has 
its own bathroom and lavatory and w.c, while of course 
it has its separate steam-heater and in most cases its own 
telephone. The other comforts of a hotel of this type in New 
York include a barber's shop, a manicure parlour, a shoe-shine 
stand, a newspaper counter, and numerous public rooms 
furnished with admirable taste. 

Yet it must be added that in those pubhc rooms, and 
especially in the bowery-like breakfast saloon or the more 

ornate dining-room, the new-comer will make 

^ M^t^^^^*"^ *^^ acquaintance of that American habit 

Habit. which is so distressing to strangers. The 

ubiquitous cuspidor, which will catch his eye 
wherever he looks, will hardly prepare him for the ordeal in 
store. And in no city is the ordeal more trying than in 
New York. Concerning the national habit of expectoration, 
Sydney Smith declared that " all claims to civihsation are 
suspended in America till this secretion is otherwise disposed 
of " ; but that protest was made in vain. Equally futile was 
the satire of Dickens, for if visitors to the White House do not 
now bestow their attentions on the President's carpets, they 
still make ample use of the cuspidors which have been intro- 
duced to spare those floor-coverings. This is not a pleasant 
subject to dwell upon, but Americans should learn that many 
who admire them, nay, have a genuine affection for them and 
their land, have a shuddering horror at every recollection of 



Some Typical Cities 197 

their disgusting expectoration habit. It is true that of recent 
years signs have been placed in the street cars and other pubHc 
places announcing a fine of $500 for indiscriminate spitting, 
but unfortunately that penalty is disregarded and unenforced. 
America, and notably New York, will never be an entirely 
pleasant place to visit until the national habit has been 
utterly broken. 

Far more congenial is it to dwell upon that spirit of abound- 
ing hospitality which is as highly developed in New York 
I as in any city of the Union. Of course, the 

! American YouT Hundred cultivate an exclusiveness in 

Hospitality. , . , , . . - . . 

keepmg with their social pretensions, but 

outside that charmed circle there are no limits to the friendli- 
ness of Manhattan. If the new-comer has a friend, an acquaint- 
a ance even, in that city, and forewarns him of his arrival, that 
i New Yorker is practically certain to be awaiting him when 
! he lands ; and from that hour forward he will sacrifice his 
:! leisure or his business to give his guest a " good time." He 
!^ will select his hotel, arrange countless dinner and theatre 
^. parties, trot him round to see the " sights," and put him up 
I at every club of which he is a member. 

i For the clubs of New York belong to a different category 

|S from those of London. The majority, indeed, seem to have 

J been estabHshed not for the purpose of keeping 

^^Cl b°^^ " strangers " at bay but for the entertainment 

of members' friends. And most of those 

I clubs, be it remembered, are really palatial establishments, 
replete with every comfort and luxury. Some of them are 
Ipohtical, such as the Union which is affihated with the 
RepubHcan party or the Manhattan which has Tammany con- 
^ nections ; but the majority are of a social character, and in 
that respect they play a more important role in the community 
life of the city than the social clubs of London. There are 
also numerous special clubs for the hterary, dramatic, and 
artistic fraternities, while each of the chief universities has 
its rallying-place in the metropolis. Among the special 



198 America of the Americans 

organisations the most typical of New York is the Lambs* 
Club, for which one of its most distinguished members, David 
Belasco, makes the legitimate claim that it is the most famous 
social coterie in the world. " There are clubs of millionaires," 
Mr. Belasco adds, " where the wealth of a single member is 
greater than that of all our members combined. There are 
clubs devoted to science, and others wherein their roster would 
read hke a list of chosen favourites from Burke's Peerage. 
The Lambs' rivals, and compares with, none of these. It is 
unique, it is original. It is, above all, exclusive. A man 
would need more than a coronet, more than a high rating in 
Bradstreet, to break through its portals and become one of 
the fold. The prime qualification for Lamb membership is 
not ' What has he got ? ' but * What has he done ? ' Drama- 
tists, actors, novelists, composers, sculptors, and artists, 
together with those shrewd minds who guide and govern the 
destinies of the American theatre — these are the men who 
appear on the Lambs' roll of membership. They are ruled, 
to pry into the official machinery of their government, by 
the * Shepherd ' and the ' Boy,' together with an executive 
council. The Shepherd watches and controls the flock ; and 
when he must leave them for a space these duties are passed 
along to the Boy. But perhaps the most picturesque and 
characteristic official of the Lambs' is the * ColHe.' At 
about monthly intervals, beginning just before Thanksgiving 
and ending just after Easter, the Lambs' indulge in their 
favourite pastime, the ' Gambol.' A ' ColHe ' is chosen and 
it is his work to ' round up ' the brother Lambs and Lambkins 
(as the new members are called), and on the Sunday evening 
chosen for the eventful date to prepare a programme of play- 
lets, musical numbers, and other diversions which all may 
enjoy. The fame of those httle ' at home ' evenings at the 
Lambs' has become so universal that there is a persistent 
demand from the outside public for a ' peep behind the 
scenes.' This interest has expressed itself more than once in 
fabulous figures ; I could name a certain rich man of social 



Some Typical Cities 199 

importance who once offered $1,000 for a ticket to a private 
Gambol. It was not to be bought." Yet even the stranger 
who has " done something " would be as welcome among the 
Lambs' as one of their flock. In short, when a New York 
club is exclusive it is so in the interests of democracy. 

Naturally the capital is the most cosmopolitan city in the 

Union. It has had that character from its earhest days. 

Less than twenty years after the Dutch settle- 

^M^"^°Y^^lf" ment some eighteen languages were spoken 
by the four or five hundred citizens of New 
Amsterdam. And to-day out of 893 periodicals regularly 
pubhshed 127 are printed in other languages than EngHsh. 
So large is the foreign parentage of the New York population 
that there ire more Irish in the city than in Dubhn and more 
Germans than in any German city with the exception of Berlin. 
Foreign cobnies are as numerous as the races of mankind : 
there is a CMnatown, a Hebrew quarter, an Itahan community, 
a Greek co.ony, a Russian section, and even Armenian and 
Arab settlenents. 

This congestion of alien races, most of them belonging to 
the poorest class of immigrants, has resulted in a condition 
of squahd overcrowding not excelled in any city of the world. 
Contrary t) the general impression, there are not many 
boastful Anericans left ; the race has died out or has travelled 
Westward md to the Pacific Coast ; but now and then a 
New Yorker or Bostonian will chide the Londoner about his 
slums and issert " We have nothing Hke them in this coun- 
try." In t'uth, however, as a more candid native confesses, 
many of th^ finest cities of the United States " have a fringe 
of ughness md filth around them which is like a torn and 
bedraggled petticoat on a woman otherwise well dressed. 
Approaching New York, or Cincinnati, or Pittsburg, or 
Chicago, yoi pass first through a dehghtful region, where the 
homes of ths prosperous are spread upon the hills, reminding 
you of a CLxle of Paradise ; and then through a region of 
hideous disader and new ruin, which has the aspect of a circle 



200 America of the Americans 

of Purgatory, and makes you doubt whether it is safe to go 
any further for fear you come to a worse place." 

In addition to that " fringe," New York has tenement 

districts which complete the Dantesque trilogy. In a small 

portion of Manhattan south of Fourteenth 

^SrTcte* ^^^^^* ^^^ ^^^* ^^ *^^ Bowery there is 
packed together a population of m^re than 
half a million, while in one city block more than six thousand 
souls have been known to herd together. Several years ago 
an exhibition of sample rooms from these congested districts 
was held in the city, in many cases the actual contents of the 
rooms being shown to enforce the moral of the object lesson. 
A windowless room, which might have done ser/ice as an 
opium den, was labelled " 300,000 rooms hke this s:ill left and 
occupied in various parts of New York " ; and other models 
were of tenement blocks housing nearly 3,000 persons without 
a single bath and only 264 water-closets. In hct, certain 
sections of the city are the most densely populatsd spots in 
the world. 

Few visitors, however, save earnest students o: sociology, 
either penetrate to or are conducted through th3 tenement 
districts ; their knowledge of the seamy side 
The Q^ -jsjg^ York is usually hmited to tie Bowery, 

as beheld from the safe view-point of a 
** Seeing-New-York " automobile. The Bowery is a street 
with a past. Not a blade of grass survives to recdl the days 
when this thoroughfare ran across the bouwerij, )r farm, of 
Peter Stujrvesant, and the gang of ruffians known as " Bowery 
Boys " has been long dispersed ; but because of its picaresque 
history it retains its fame as one of the " sights " of the 
metropohs. Its denizens are Chinese, Russians, Oiental and 
Polish Jews, whose varied needs are catered for by m amazing 
assortment of beer saloons, concert gardens, dime museums, 
shooting galleries, tramp lodging-houses, low whisly " dives," 
tatooing dens, and Yiddish theatres. Here may /et be seen 
the legend of " Oysters in every style " which arrested the eye 



Some Typical Cities 201 

of Dickens, though dispersed among the cheaper stores are 
a few higher-class shops which are strugghng to raise the 
" tone " of the district. 

For a short distance the more famous and reputable Broad- 
way runs almost parallel with the Bowery. But Broadway is 
a far longer and more varied highway. The 
Broadway. Bowery begins and ends in the underworld ; 
Broadway starts out as an avenue of com- 
merce, makes a transition into the Tenderloin of Lobster 
Palaces, and ends as a boulevard high up Manhattan. It 
I sets out on its lengthy journey from near the Battery, " which 
though ostensibly devoted to the purpose of war, has ever 
been consecrated to the sweet delights of peace," and in its 
down-town section is the centre of the wholesale dry goods 
' district ; but when it deflects across Union Square, and still 
' more so as it turns westward at Madison Square, it suffers 
I a topographical change into " The Gay White Way," so 
( famous all over the Union. As the main artery of the city it 
I is busthng enough in daylight, but when night falls its side- 
I walks and roadway are congested with a seething traffic 
of pleasure-seekers. Theatres, hotels, and restaurants are 
ablaze with light ; countless parti-coloured advertising signs 
proclaim the virtues of stage " stars," drinks, corsets, and 
Lobster Palaces ; the surface cars dash raucously north and 
\ south ; while either pavement is dense with a dining, theatre- 
bent crowd. Times Square is the junction of all this whirl — 
Times Square, once the Longacre Square of Washington's 
days, but now better known as " Eating-house Square." 

For Broadway between Madison Square and East 42nd 

Street marks the area of those restaurants which prompted 

the epigram that it is not so much the high 

Tenderloin ^ f living which ails the United States 

Restaurants. , °, . , .. . k ^ i< >> 

as the cost of high livmg. At the smart 

resorts night after night it is no uncommon sight for a unique 
bread-line to be held in check by a plush rope and an under- 
waiter, while the social register of the Tenderloin is consulted 



202 America of the Americans 

for the names of those who have ordered tables in advance. 
For New Year orgies at these resorts the table-booking is 
arranged months in advance, and the applicant's chances of 
success are in ratio to the cost of the dinner he orders. It 
has been admitted, in fact, that it is Broadway's hysterical 
loathing of cheapness which gives the restaurateur the whip 
hand. The head waiter suggests expensive dishes, and his 
\'ictim orders them to show he " has the price." To secure a 
well-placed table in a popular restaurant on a busy evening 
almost always involves the pavTnent of a dollar or two of 
" honest graft " to the head waiter who reserves it. Even the 
cloak-room bo\' will gaze askance if he is offered less than a 
quarter for handing you your own hat and coat. If, however, 
a visit to Sherry's or Delmonico's is a costly enjo^Tnent, there 
are not lacking on Broadway such less ambitious restaurants as 
Shanley's, where the cooking compares favourably with any 
Lobster Palace, where the decorations are less flamboyant, and 
the company is not so suspect. 

But if Broadway has a gustatory value in the scheme of 
New York, it also has an aesthetic distinction in the city's 
topography. It is the most notable exception to those right 
angles and straight lines which are the monotonous character- 
istics of the other streets. The chequer-board lay-out of 
American cities is indeed their most distressing feature. 
Thales ought not to have been born until the United States 
was well settled. Certain fringes of lower Manhattan escaped 
the ruler of the city planner, much to their gain in picturesque- 
ness ; but for the rest, with the exception of Broadway, every 
section was marked off in geometric pattern. Hence the rehef 
of Broadway's westward bend. From Union Square north- 
ward it cuts athwart the interminably rigid lines of the 
avenues and streets, and so produces a number of irregular 
vistas which are sadly lacking in other parts of the city. 
That it has a name, too, instead of a characterless number is 
another of its charms anaid streets and avenues which have no 
individualitv in their nomenclature. 



Some Typical Cities 203 

There is, however, one thoroughfare in New York which 
despite its numerical designation has a character of its own — 
the famous Fifth Avenue of milhonaires' 
Fifth homes. In its six-mile course from Washing- 

ton Square to the Harlem River that avenue 
links the past with the present. " Bits " of old New York 
are difficult to discover ; the city is in such a constant process 
of transformation as to justify the assertion that " New York 
will be a dehghtful place to live in when it is finished " ; 
but glimpses of an earlier day are vouchsafed in such back- 
waters as Washington Square, once the Potter's Field of the 
city. It is true that three sides of the square have been 
invaded by business premises, but on the north side may yet 
be seen some of those stately mansions which take the mind 
back to colonial days. To the right of these the Washington 
Arch affords an entrance to Fifth Avenue, the lower reaches of 
which are gradually succumbing to the invasion of commerce. 

Indeed, notwithstanding the incidence of the Vanderbilt 
Twin -houses between 51st and 52nd Streets, and despite 
the mansions which decorate the four corners of 57th Street, 
it is not until 60th Street is reached that there commences the 
long procession of " Milhonaires' Row." At that point Fifth 
Avenue is denuded of houses on its west side, for here the 
Central Park breaks the line of the thoroughfare, thus trans- 
forming this section into an elongated Park Lane. Many 
of the names famous in American wealth are recalled by the 
palatial mansions overlooking the park, for here are the 
homes of the Astors, the Havemeyers, the Paynes, the 
Armours, the Goulds, the Yerkes's, and the Whitneys. Of 
course, those buildings represent staggering wealth, here 
$3,000,000 for the building, there an art collection valued at 
$2,000,000. In places the architecture offends by over- 
decoration, but the Cornelius Vanderbilt House is a charming 
reminder of a French chateau, while Mr. Carnegie's substan- 
tial mansion is replete with dignity. " Milhonaires' Row," 
in brief, has ample variety, giving to Fifth Avenue an aspect 



204 America of the Americans 

in welcome contrast to the business vistas of New York. 
The unfortunate thing is that too many of the houses seem 
so seldom occupied. It is a tradition in New York that the 
millionaires only dwell in their mansions for a month or so 
in the season, passing the remainder of their year as hotel 
guests. But when the Four Hundred are " at home " their 
special thoroughfare is a veritable Vanity Fair of wealth 
and fashion. 

One other aspect of New York must arrest the most inat- 
tentive visitor — the facilities for travelhng to any nook or 

corner of Manhattan. Apart from the taxi- 
F^Ilitie? cabs, which are avoided by all save those 

who have " money to burn," the three means 
of transit, subway and surface car and elevated railroad, are 
swift, economical, and of liberal service. Two of them are 
also noisy. No electric tram creates quite the din of the 
New York surface car, while the pandemonium of the elevated 
makes conversation in its vicinity an absolute impossibility. 
The greatest achievement of the city in dealing with the 
traffic of Manhattan is represented by the subway, a kind of 
covered trench from the Battery to Bronx Park, the original 
contract for which reached the record sum of $35,000,000. 
The ordinary trains travel at a terrific speed, but the " Non- 
stop " specials can leave nothing to be desired by the most 
" hustling " American. 

A lady who speaks in itahcs and small capitals once described 
Boston as " Such a dear place." That compliment was 

doubtless the eulogist's tribute to the hkeness 
Boston. of the New England capital to parts of her 
^ native London. Such a similarity does exist ; 

it is commented upon by all visitors from the British capital, 
who often go further and declare that the region of Beacon 
Hill takes them back to Bloomsbury. As Boston has enacted 
laws against a sky-scraper exceeding twelve stories, it will 
never be recognised as an out-and-out American city, that is, 
an American city of the modern era ; but it has a charm 



Some Typical Cities 205 

greater than that quaHty, a charm due to its continuity with 
colonial days. Something of that continuity has been 
destroyed by the demolition of such a typical mansion as the 
John Hancock House on Beacon Street, but there are still 
many survivals of the Revolutionary period, including King's 
Chapel, the Old South Church, and the picturesque old State 
House. Happily, owing to the zeal of such citizens as Edwin 
D. Mead, the Bostonians of to-day are fully ahve to the 
inestimable value of their ancient buildings, and it is not likely 
that such vandalism as that which destroyed the Hancock 
mansion will be repeated. 

Although in the newer portions of the city some tribute 

has been paid to the fetish of right angles and straight lines, 

the older section, namely the promontory 

Boston ^^ which the famous Common is nearly the 

centre, still preserves the winding streets 

which, as tradition avers, follow the straggling cow-tracks of 

colonial days. All this m.akes for the picturesqueness of old 

Boston, for if the condition of the roadway and the sidewalks 

is a standing disgrace to the municipal government, no City 

Hall " graft " can obliterate the exquisite vistas of Tremont 

Street or the quaint prospects of Beacon Hill. Around the 

purlieus of the City Hall there are courts and alleys which 

might have been transplanted from old London. 

According to the scoffing spirits of Manhattan, " the best 
thing about Boston is the five o'clock train to New York." 
That jibe is an indication that the old habit of making jokes 
at the expense of " the Hub " is not quite defunct, but it is 
moribund compared with its lusty vitality of a generation 
ago. In the days when culture was less appreciated through- 
out the Union than it is to-day Boston and its claim to leader- 
ship in letters provided unhmited material for the humorists 
of other cities. Even now there are occasional recrudescences 
of satires directed against the " Brahmins " of the city, but 
with Indiana claiming to be the centre of " Hteritoor " the 
storm area is removing to the Central States. Of course. 



206 America of the Americans 

Boston can no longer be regarded as leading the whole Union 
in letters ; that supremacy passed with the dying out of the 
New England school of authors ; but in one respect its 
pre-eminence is still unchallenged, and will probably remain 
so for many generations. 

For in no State of the Union, nor in any other city of the 
world, does there exist a pubUc library comparable to that 

which has its headquarters on Copley Square. 
Publfc* Library ^^^ building, an admirable structure in the 

style of the Italian Renaissance, has a quiet 
dignity strictly in keeping with its purpose, while its interior 
decorations, as has been remarked in a previous chapter, are 
superb examples of mural embellishment ; but it is by its 
wealth of contents and the Hberal manner in which they are 
placed at the use of the community that the institution has 
attained its high distinction. The bulk of the volumes, which 
exceed the million mark, and are being increased at the rate 
of about 30,000 a year, are available for circulation. Every 
resident of the city is entitled, upon proper recommendation, 
to a reader's ticket by which two volumes may be withdrawn 
for home study, but in addition there are special tickets which 
enable their holders to secure an extra eight volumes at a 
time. And if proper cause can be shown, the fortunate 
possessors of those tickets are allowed the home use of books 
which in other libraries would be strictly reserved for reference 
within the building. It is impossible to speak too highly of 
the friendhness and helpfulness of all members of the staff, 
or of the alacrity of the service. 

Boston owes its unique pubhc Hbrary mainly to the hberahty 
of its citizens, who, at all stages of its history, have ever been 

distinguished for their pubhc spirit. The 
Citv^Club latest manifestation of that excellent quahty 

in the community is illustrated by the history 
of the Boston City Club, which was founded in 1906 for the 
purpose of establishing social relations between men interested 
in promoting the welfare of the city. In a sense that club 




nw 



Photo by Underwood & Underwood 

PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, WASHINGTON, D.C. 



Some Typical Cities 207 

is the outgrowth of municipal conditions. For many years 
the New England capital has cost more for its government 
than any city in the Union, its average per head of the popu- 
lation being $35 as compared with about $12 for Chicago, or 
$23 for New York. This is partly explained by the dominance 
of the Irish vote in city poHtics, a condition usually conducive 
to extravagance and " graft." Hence the growth of what is 
known as the " good government " movement in the city, 
which is represented by the City Club even though that organ- 
isation does not endorse men or measures, but restricts its 
non-social functions to providing a forum for the discussion 
of urgent problems. The fact that there is already a member- 
ship of 4,500 and a waiting list of 1,500 is a pertinent proof 
that the community is responsive to wholesome leadership. 
The members include representatives of all nationahties, 
religions, and political creeds, and as, in accordance with the 
motto of the club, " every member knows every other member 
without an introduction," prejudices which are born of ignor- 
ance are destroyed by frank understanding and friendship. 
In fact the Boston City Club promises to accomplish for the 
community far greater reforms than are contemplated by the 
most idealistic " Progressives." 

Although the City Club is so democratic an institution, 
it must not be imagined that " the Hub " is deficient in more 

exclusive organisations. There are more 
" Sets^^'*^ social " sets " in Boston than in any other 

American city, for its proportion of " old 
famihes " exceeds that of any community in the Union. 
Despite its population of some 600,000 souls, its social life is 
ruled by about half a dozen " Back Bay " coteries, who, 
notwithstanding the collective pride of all, are as clannish 
as the most austere aristocrats. Hence the hospitaUty of 
Boston is less expansive than that of New York, though 
the visitor who comes with proper credentials will have more 
invitations than he can compass. But whether he moves 
in " Back Bay " circles or the more democratic environments 



208 America of the Americans 

of the city, the visitor will agree \vith that chronicler of the 
late eighteenth century who found Bostonians " as pohte as 
in most of the cities and towns in England." And he wall 
probably be surprised at the purity of their Enghsh, for the 
stranger who expects to hear nasal intonations among the 
natives of " the Hub " will be profoundly disappointed. 

Time has wTought some amazing transformations in the 

characteristics of some of the older American cities, for 

whereas Boston which was once the stronghold 

Philadelphia, of Puritanism, is now dominated by Roman 
CathoHcism, so Philadelphia, the settlement 
of so pronounced a moralist as William Penn, has attained the 
unenviable distinction of being the corruptest city in the 
Union. It is also supposed to be somnolent as compared with 
New York or Chicago, for the Chicagoan who was asked how 
many children he had, replied " Four ; three li\'ing, and one 
in Philadelphia." But for a city of the dead, the metropohs 
of Pennsylvania is surprisingly awake to the main chance. 
One of its synonyms is " the City of Brotherly Love," yet that 
distinction does not deter its inhabitants pre}dng upon each 
other in a corporate capacit}'. A huge steel-built structure is 
pleasantly known as " the Steal Hall," because there was such 
a marked difference between the contract price and the bill 
which had to be finally paid, while this habit of " bettering 
your neighbour " is carried to such lengths that " graft " 
finds full play even at refreshment counters, where there are 
waiters who, for a consideration, will mark your pay check 
at about a fourth of the value of the eatables consumed. 

Another merit claimed for Philadelphia is implied in the 

synonjan of " the City of Homes," as though all other cities 

were composed of " roomers " or " boarders." 

of P?^ ^s^' Certainly America is not strong in home Hfe. 

The home as an institution is being " crowded 

out a little." When an enterprising publisher announced 

that it was his ambition to see a set of the works of a 

distinguished author in " every American home," Life made the 



Some Typical Cities 209 

dry comment that that was " not a tall order." Moving-day, 
indeed, seems to be one of the fixed festivals of the United 
States. It is one of the inalienable rights of the American, 
a New York newspaper once declared, to insure his domestic 
tranquillity " by leaving a domicile before it has become too 
famihar." Hence when Philadelphia is proclaimed as " the 
City of Homes," one expects a higher average of domicile 
ownership there than elsewhere. The fact, however, is that 
the percentage of famiHes owning homes in that city is only 
22.1, as compared with 44.1 for Los Angeles. What the 
imphed compliment really means is that there is less over- 
crowding in Philadelphia, that is, there are more houses and 
fewer people in them. This is obvious from the domestic 
architecture of the city, for in street after street, instead of 
huge blocks of fiats or tenements, there are long rows of neat 
I little two-storey buildings intended for occupation by a single, 
: self-contained family. 

( For the rest, in its objective aspect, there is Uttle to dis- 
tinguish the commercial capital of Pennsylvania from any 
I other city of the Union. To the charge of somnolence in a 
. business relation the best answer is afforded by the thriving 
Wannamaker store or by the activity of numerous other 
J estabHshments. It is a city, too, of enviable traditions for 
: the patriotic American, for it was once the national capital, 
' and it was within its Independence Hall that the Constitution 
q was framed and signed. 

3 If there is one city of the Union more distinguished than 
I another for a dolce far niente atmosphere, New Orleans can 

Ihave few rivals. But unfortunately it also 
Q^^^ is undergoing an American change. That 

r cans. .^ ^^ ^^^^ Canal Street and the business section 
- is being invaded by the sky-scraper and the square commercial 
I block, to the loss of the amorphous buildings in which the 
'i activities of the Crescent City were aforetime carried on. 
I Nor is this " Americain " influence confined to the business 
quarter ; in many of the residential districts, such as Audubon 

14— (2393A) 



210 America of the Americans 

Park or St. Charles Avenue, the quaint old mansions of planta- 
tion days are being superseded by the pretentious but less 
picturesque homes of the twentieth century. New Orleans, 
in fact, is hovering between the past and the present, but its 
hold upon tradition is relaxing in view of the pressure of more 
modern ways. 

Yet as the scene of the greatest Mardi Gras festival in the 
New World, which however is being somewhat spoilt by too 
much " Chinese business," New Orleans has more indi\4duality 
than most American cities. The \'ieux Carre, too, which 
explains its designation as " the Old French Lady by the 
Riverbank," still preserves much of the romance and poetry 
of an earUer age. It is not merely that the names of the 
thoroughfares, such as Du Maine, Conti, Bourbon, and Chatres 
streets are an infinite relief from avenues and streets of numeri- 
cal designation, but that in the vistas of quaint courtyards, 
or glimpses of gardens adorned with fountains and statues, 
or in the persistence of latticed \dndows and artistic ironwork, 
the spirit of the past hovers around. If absinthe is no longer 
drunk at the Absinthe House, and if cocktails have supplanted 
a cordial once famous by the banks of the Mississippi, there 
are cafes which may have been \'isited by the old Spanish 
governors or by the Marquis de La Fayette. By its cuisine,^ 
indeed, its continental Sunday, its language, and above all 
by the grace and beauty of the Creoles, the foreign element of 
New Orleans makes a brave stand against " Americain " 
influences. If, on the whole, the \'isitor bears away an impres- 
sion of a fasse community, it is some mitigation of such a 
melancholy memory to realise that the " Old French Lady 
of the Riverbank " icas a lady in her own right. 

But if New Orleans is living the double hfe so also is 

Washington, District of Columbia. Not in the moral, but in 

the social sense. In other words, there are 

^^'dc^°"' ^^^'^ Washingtons: the Washington of the 

winter political season, when Congressmen 

and their wives are in session, the honourable gentlemen busy 




5 - 









Some Typical Cities 211 

on legislation, and the honourable ladies equally industrious 
in making calls or giving dinners ; and the Washington which, 
once the pohtical season is over, is left to its own resources and 
becomes " a cross between a deserted village and a rather 
sleepy Southern town." As the national capital, then, 
Washington to be seen at its best must be visited in the 
winter ; for in the summer it has none of that continuity 
with the commercial and artistic activities which holds together 
the life of other capitals all the year round. 

Although Washington has been the seat of the Federal 
government since 1800, the city is really the creation of the 
last fifty years. Its ambitious ground-plan was prepared 
by Major Pierre L'Enfant, a French ofQcer who had served 
in the Revolutionary War, but so Httle progress had been 
made in carrying out the plan when the government was 
established here that the place was described as " a backwoods 
settlement in the wilderness." For many years, indeed, it 
was described by such satiric epithets as the " Wilderness 
City," the " City of Streets without Houses," " A Mudhole 
almost Equal to the Great Serbonian Bog," and the " City of 
Magnificent Distances." It was the latter phrase, first used 
in 1816 by the Minister from Portugal, which Dickens took so 
seriously that he protested it ought to be abandoned in favour 
of " the City of Magnificent Intentions." Well, the intentions 
have been so thoroughly reahsed since the Civil War that 
Washington is now the most beautiful city in all America, and 
one of the most beautiful in the world. 

i Thanks to Major L'Enf ant's plan, the scornful epithet of 
] " Magnificent Distances " is now a truthful description, for 
I the open spaces, the circus intersections of 

' «?vf ^^-^ °^ ^^^ avenues, the parks, the broad thorough- 
i Distances." fares with their side lawns and wide asphalt 
j pavements and rows of shade trees, the stately 

I vistas of the main streets, and the generous scale on which 
jthe whole are arranged give the city an indubitable right to 
j claim as a eulogy the phrase once used to its detriment. 



212 America of the Americans 

Prior to the Civil War, the nation as a whole was indifferent 
to the prerogatives of its capital, but after that conflict, and 
as a result of the Federal pride born of the struggle, it began 
to receive the attention which has transformed it to its 
present unrivalled aspect. When it is remembered that by 
far the majority of its chief pubhc buildings have been erected 
subsequent to 1865, including the dignified Corcoran Gallery, 
the noble State and War and Navy Building, the impressive 
Washington Monument, and the superb Library of Congress, 
and that the countless mansions of the multi-millionaire 
citizens have all also been erected within the last half century, 
it will be obvious that Washington must be judged by the 
present rather than by the deriding description penned by 
Dickens more than seventy years ago. If it is true that over- 
decoration is rather a weakness in Washington, a foible 
exemplified in the over-loading of the mural adornments of 
the Library of Congress, and still further illustrated by 
those interiors of milhonaire mansions which prompted a 
critic to exclaim of one that it was " a cross between early 
Pullman and late North German Lloyd," the exteriors of 
most public and domestic buildings rarely offend against 
good taste. 

Owing to the Library of Congress, the city is becoming of 
increasing importance as a literary centre. Save for the 

favoured executive, congressional, and diplo- 
of^ConeresT "^^^ic classes, who are allowed to draw upon 

its resources for home reading, the library 
is restricted to reference uses, but its stores of more than 
2,000,000 printed volumes and upwards of 1,000,000 manu- 
scripts, prints, maps, etc., are freely accessible to all students 
on every day of the year save the 4th of July and Christmas 
Day. The character of the library, which is particularly rich 
in historical and ofiicial material, naturally determines the 
type of student most in evidence in the capital. And there 
are other institutions, such as the Carnegie Institution, the 
Bureau of Ethnology, the Smithsonian Institution, etc., which 



Some Typical Cities 213 

also tend to accentuate the serious character of the intellectual 
workers of the city. 

Apart from those students, and in \'iew of the absence of 
manufactures save such as are connected \dth Federal affairs, 
the permanent population naturally consists in overwhelming 
proportion of government employees. Apart from official 
emplo^-ment. indeed, the chief industry of Washington con- 
sists in catering for the needs of the transient winter population 
of congressmen and their vdves and famihes, and the poUtical 
hangers-on who have an axe to grind while Congress is in 
^ session. The diplomatic corps, in addition to imparting 
' picturesqueness to official occasions, does give some stability 
to the social hfe of the city ; but, as akeady hinted, it is when 
Congress is in session that intercourse is at its height. Few, 
: however, reahse what a strain upon financial resources is 
I entailed by that season in the case of the majority of Senators 
'and Representatives, for even a cabinet minister's \^ife has 
] been heard to make the woeful confession that " a winter in 
, Washington does make our salary look like a Swiss cheese." 
; The monetary- aspect of capital hfe. indeed, was tersely illus- 
i trated by the minister who, on being informed that the rent 
^ of a furnished house which had been pressed upon his attention 
was $10,000, asked " WTiat shall I do with the other $2,000 
;of my salary ? " If, however, the se-ason results in many 
;hea\y debts, it at least gives Washington a brilliant six 
months. 

As compared with the capital, there is hardly another city 
•in the Union which presents so painful a contrast as Pittsburg, 
' whose chief characteristic may be imagined 

I Pittsburg. from the epithet which describes it as "Hell 
with the hd off." If the approach to the city 
is made by night, and especially by the route from Washington, 
tthe faithfulness of that phrase will be readily admitted. 
But, indeed, most of the fringes of Pittsburg are remarkable for 
iron and steel works, which befoul the air by day and give a 
lurid lighting to the sky by night. Hence the place well 



214 America of the Americans 

deserves its secondary nickname of " the Smoky City," the 
effects of which are so persistent in the business and hotel area 
that cleanHness for an hour at a time is impossible. Although 
the best hotel has a magnificent interior, where at meal hours 
one may see more handsome, well set-up men than in any 
other dining-room of the United States, it is only by almost 
hourly cleaning that its walls and marble stair\vays are kept 
even partly free from filth. The casual \'isitor, indeed, ^y\ll 
marvel that a hundred people, much less more than 500,000, 
can be prevailed upon to pass their fives in such a noisome den. 

But there is money in Pittsburg. Its factory products 
have an average annual value of more than $200,000,000. As 
a consequence the " Pittsburg millionaires '' are a numerous 
class, and if their audible soup-eating habits are a b\^vord in 
rival cities, they are tr\*ing to make amends by a strenuous 
fostering of art and music and learning. The Phipps Con- 
ser\'atory is the largest institution of its kind in America, and, 
as stated in a previous chapter, the city is distinguished for the 
cash prizes which it of!ers yearly for the encouragement of 
painting. 

If the Chicago business buildings have something of the 
grimy appearance of those of Pittsburg, its atmosphere is a 
welcome contrast, o\\'ing to those cHmatic 
Chicago. conditions which have given it the name of 
" the Windy City." Something of its com- 
mercial importance has already been made e\-ident in the 
pre\'ious chapter, but in the trend of American development 
the city on the shores of Lake Michigan stands for higher 
things than commercial prosperity. In population it comes 
next in importance to New York, but in all good works and in 
fostering public spirit it compares favourably \\'ith the 
metropofis. Chicago is a friendly city. Its citizens have a 
genius for kindness and a hospitality which, though at times 
carried to excess, as in its too-serious recognition of the 
Cubists and their freaks, ensures the gathering of the full 
harvest of good from even evil things. 



S::::e Tx-pical Cities 215 



TTV, 



c:tv : - AT" :: -rr his zfir. . r 

work c: J^^e Aidiizs i: H-ill House is r-emeitiT-C "le 



^ Coast li II '.^ 



FlaLU< 



01. n. 



cialK* 15 r.f ~~.:rf5 in ?:tv :^ : . ~.i: 

which wc ; :;v 7 " :: :-t ::i7 

Fot be^ fin Jrir: f ^ : 

There are ;• 7:.^:^ : 

Golden Gaic ciiy ' 1 .: r r 

Plutardiiaii "svcIt: . .: 1 ;.:.Lr: : 

in C^pe To^sn - :- - ^ - - - - - :c 
compete with 

: Francisco his -:: :J:f ::.7 



and so i: 



216 America of the Americans 

gum-tree. And there is ample reason for the phrase which 
describes San Francisco as " the City of the Golden Gate/' 
for its sunsets are among the most glorious of the world. 

Phenomenal enterprise has been shown in the re-building 
of the city. With that inappropriate affectation which resents 
the abbreviation of the city's name to " 'Frisco," the natives 
never speak of the earthquake which laid the place in ruins 
a few years ago ; there is a conspiracy to attribute everything 
to " the Fire " instead, as though the city were ignorant of a 
seismic shock. In many streets the untidy havoc of " the 
Fire " is still a distressing sight, but in the chief thoroughfares 
of the business section handsome buildings have replaced the 
ruins of 1906 ; indeed, the reconstruction has been on such 
a scale that the supply of premises has exceeded the demand. 
But much of the old charm of the city has gone for ever ; the 
new Chinatown is a show-place made to order, and Golden 
Gate Park has lost many of its most beautiful monuments. 
If, too, there was any romance attaching to the resorts of the 
Forty-niners that has been destroyed by " the Fire." 

Subjectively San Francisco is perhaps the most provincial 
city in America. Its " native sons " have an amazing conceit 
of their own importance ; to their thinking nothing exists 
on the other side of the Rockies. The political life of the city, 
when not astonishing the world by revelations of unparallelled 
corruption, savours of the village-pump. Labour organisa- 
tions and panderers to vice seem irremovably enthroned in 
supreme authority. Even " the Fire " has not cleansed the 
city's pontics or morals. For few indeed must be the 
*' righteous men " in a community which blew hot and cold 
in the prosecution of such acknowledged criminals as Ruef, 
Schmitz and company. Perhaps it is unjust to the Union 
to describe San Francisco as a " t5rpical " city, yet the classi- 
fication may be allowed to stand because in so many ways 
the community perpetuates that lawlessness which, in '49, 
was a notable phase of American hfe. 



CHAPTER XII 

SOCIAL PROBLEMS 

AuGUSTE Bartholdi's gigantic statue of Liberty Enlightening 
the World dominates the busy scene of Upper New York Bay. 
When the sculptor resolved to commemorate the friendship 
of France for the United States, and conceived the idea of 
designing this greatest colossus of the world, a visit to the 
gateway of the New World convinced him that the most 
suitable site for his statue was somewhere in the wide sweep 
of waters from whence emigrants obtained their first glimpse 
of their land of promise. The French sculptor was impressed 
by the eagerness with which those emigrants crowded to the 
side of the ship and directed their expectant gaze towards 
their new home. Here, then, he decided, was the most appro- 
I priate venue for that symbolical figure which by her bene- 
volent countenance and uphfted torch should proclaim the 
freedom and opportunity of the New World. The statue 
of Liberty, in fact, is an embodiment of Lowell's definition of 
America as the land " where every man has a chance and 
( knows that he has it." It enshrines the one dominant idea 
! which has drawn so many millions hither from the farthest 
corners of the world. 

That spacious lure of the New World has inspired the brush 
of the artist and the pen of the writer. During the last 
twenty-five years hardly an exhibition of the 
^^^L'b'^r °^ National Academy of Design has been defi- 
cient in paintings having this subject for their 
theme — paintings of arriving vessels crowded with the human 
flotsam and jetsam of other lands. The subject was irre- 
sistible ; it provided unique opportunity for the portrayal 
of wistfulness and hope. In verse and prose, too, the same 
topic has found insistent expression, the burden of the writer 
being the sanguine expectation, the buoyant assurance of the 

217 



218 America of the Americans 

emigrants that all the misery, the carking care, the poverty of 
their Uves were at an end. Those optimists had been well 
phed by the steamship agents of their native land with the 
astounding figures of American prosperity ; it was a land, 
they were assured, of untold wealth and unlimited opportunity, 
hence in their eyes the statue of Liberty was transformed 
into a beneficent fairy beckoning them towards an earthly 
Canaan. 

Many e\'idences of American prosperity have been adduced 
in a previous chapter. It has been shown that in agriculture, 
in manufactures, in lumbering, in transit labour, and in 
shop-keeping the statistics of the wealth represented and the 
workers employed are without parallel in any other country. 
And it has not been possible to tabulate a tithe of the proofs 
of the progress made in the United States during the past 
century. A full table of the increase in area, population, 
and material industries would suggest a record unique in the 
annals of national development. Hence it is not surprising 
that in Europe America is known as " Dollarica." 

But the shield has a reverse. Some idea of that other side 

must dawn upon any one who scans a list of the societies 

existing in New York alone. That all is not 

The Other well in the commonwealth can be easily 

Side of divined from the acti\'itv of such organisations 
American * •' -n 4 • • 

Prosperity. as the Amencan Anti-Boycott Association, 

the Association for Befriending Children and 
Young Girls, the Chattel Loan Society, the Association for 
Impro\ing the Condition of the Poor, the Society for the 
Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and the Society for the 
Prevention of Crime. These, and many kindred organisations, 
are all located in New York ; but there are countless national 
associations which by their very nature reveal the number 
and importance of the social problems which clamour for 
solution in this prosperous land. 

For the development of America has falsified the expecta- 
tions and the wishes of some of the founders of the Republic. 



Social Problems 219 

There were some, notably Thomas Jefferson, who hoped the 
new land would always be conspicuous for the simple Hfe, 

that it might be an Arcadia among the nations. 
tJT Arcad?r ^^^ *^^^^ President was wholly consistent in 

that ambition, for his dress of " plain 
cloth," his walking instead of driving to the Capitol for his 
inauguration, and the extreme simpHcity of his private life 
were the practical embodiment of his theories. He devoutly 
hoped that the United States would never become a manu- 
facturing nation. " While we have land to labour," he 
remarked, " let us never wish to see our citizens occupied at 
a workshop or twirling a distaff. Let our workshops remain 
in Europe. It is better to carry provisions and materials 
to workmen there than to bring them to the provisions and 
materials with their manners and principles. The mobs of 
great cities add just as much to the support of pure govern- 
ment as sores do to the strength of the human body." 
Jefferson, then, was one American who would not have boasted 
of the country's leadership among the manufacturing nations. 
That his ideal has not been attained is in nothing so obvious 
as in the programme of that Progressive party with which 

ex-President Roosevelt has identified himself. 
Progressive ^is various " planks," indeed, are a significant 

microcosm of the other side of American 
prosperity. For after postulating that the supreme duty of 
the nation is " the conservation of human resources through 
an enlightened measure of social and industrial justice," the 
Progressive party pledges itself to work for the following 
reforms : 

" Effective legislation looking to the prevention of industrial 
accidents, occupational diseases, overwork, involuntary 
unemployment, and other injurious effects incident to modern 
industry. 

" The fixing of minimum safety and health standards for 
the various occupations, and the exercise of the public author- 
ity of state and nation, including the federal control, over 



220 America of the Americans 

interstate commerce and the taxing power, to maintain 
such standards. 

" The prohibition of child labour. 

" Minimum wage standards for working women, to provide 
a living scale in all industrial occupations. 

" The prohibition of night work for women and the estab- 
lishment of an eight -hour day for women and young persons. 

" One day's rest in seven for all wage workers. 

" The eight-hour day in continuous twenty-four-hour 
industries. 

" The aboHtion of the convict contract labour system ; 
substituting a system of prison production for governmental 
consumption only ; and the application of prisoners' earnings 
to the support of their dependent famihes. 

" Publicity as to wages, hours and conditions of labour ; 
full reports upon industrial accidents and diseases, and the 
opening to pubhc inspection of all tallies, weights, measures, 
and check system on labour products. 

" Standards of compensation for death by industrial acci- 
dent and injury and trade diseases which will transfer the 
burden of lost earnings from the famihes of working people 
to the industry, and thus to the community. 

" The protection of home life against the hazards of sick- 
ness, irregular employment and old age through the adoption 
of a system of social insurance adapted to American use. 

" The development of the creative labour power of America 
by hfting the last load of illiteracy from American youth and 
establishing continuation schools for industrial education 
under pubHc control and encouraging agricultural education 
and demonstration in rural schools. 

" The establishment of industrial research laboratories to 
put the methods and discoveries of science at the service of 
American producers. 

" We favour the organisation of the workers, men and 
women, as a means of protecting their interests and of 
promoting their progress." 



Social Problems 221 

Those who are familiar with the campaign issues of the 

various parties in the United States will at once recognise 

in the Progressive programme a Joseph's 

Antagonism (.q^^^ filched in sections from the Independents, 

and Capital, the Socialists, the Populists, and the Industrial 
Workers. Of all these organisations the two 
bearing the identical title of " Industrial Workers of the 
World " are the most thorough in their root-and-branch 
policy, for the preamble of each expresses the conviction that 
" The working class and the employing class have nothing 
in common." They also declare that between the two classes 
a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organise 
as a class, take possession of the earth and the machinery 
of production, and abohsh the wage system ! The Inde- 
pendents have no faith in the labour panaceas of either 
Democrats or Republicans, describing them ahke as so much 
" political buncombe and contemptible claptrap unworthy 
of national parties claiming to be serious and sincere." Hence 
the evolution of ex-President Roosevelt's ambitious Pro- 
gressive programme, which is an adroit attempt to capture 
the suffrages of all the discontented. 

But the nature of its sweeping reforms is the measure of 
the reverse to the shield of American prosperity. Where 
there is so much smoke there must be a certain amount of 
fire. For, of course, the transformation of America from a 
self-contained agricultural community into a huge workshop 
of manufacturing industry has created that very class which 
Jefferson dreaded as a " sore " in national life. The more 
than 7,000,000 wage-earners of industrial occupations are a 
new class undreamt of by the framers of the Constitution, 
and their existence has created a large number of dangerous 
social problems. They are dependent upon the sale of their 
labour to those who control the machinery of production, and 
are, as has been remarked, " in general a toolless, propertyless, 
and homeless class." 

That the workers of America have many legitimate 



222 America of the Americans 

grievances is generally admitted. " Fourth of July orators," 

Professor Seager has reminded his countr3mien, " dehght 

to point out the various fields in which we 

Grievances excel, but there is one field of which they say 

of the ^gj.y little, and that is that we kill and injure 

Industrial -^ , . . , . , ,, 

Workers. more workmg men m proportion to the 

number employed on our railroads, in our 
mines and factories than any other country in the world. 
On our railroads three times as many employees are killed and 
five times as many are maimed each year as on the railroads 
of the United Kingdom, and the situation in our coal mines 
is almost as bad, for there each year we average a loss of three 
and one-third out of every thousand persons employed, 
whereas in England the average is two, in Germany two and 
one-half, while in Belgium the average is one. The pre- 
vention of these accidents is a pressing social problem, but it 
is not of this that I wish to speak, but of the method we have 
of caring for the 100,000 working-men who are maimed, the 
20,000 widows and the 60,000 orphans that are left, as a result 
of these accidents. Our method of caring for them is neither 
just nor generous. We leave them to the mercy of a law 
that has been discarded as out of date in practically every 
other civilised country but ours." Such are some of the 
conditions of the Hfe which awaits those who respond to the 
beckoning of the statue of Liberty. 

And those conditions have been responsible for the organisa- 
tion of labour, for a formidable body of labour legislation, 

and for strenuous efforts to control the big 
American trusts. Although in its present form the 
^ Labour! ° American Federation of Labour was not 

organised until 1886, trade unionism obtained 
a foothold in the country prior to the Civil War. One of its 
chief conflicts has been internal, namely, a struggle between 
those who favoured unions framed on the lines of a single 
industry and those who supported union by distinct trades. 
At the present time the Federation is composed of 113 unions. 



Social Problems 223 

with a membership of about 2,000,000. It would be difficult 
to name an occupation which has not its union, from Asbestos 
Workers to the Protective Association of American Wire 
Weavers. And in its cumulative campaign organised labour 
is pursuing its ends ruthlessly and unsocially. The Federa- 
tion has persist entty kept clear of a political alignment, 
notwithstanding numerous attempts to capture its organisa- 
tion, holding that by that pohcy it can dispose of its vote to 
the best advantage. 

Individual unions have carried their organisation to almost 

incredibly extreme lengths, often to the industrial ruin of the 

cities where they can control the municipal 

^RineraJr" ^^^^" ^^ ^^^ Francisco, for example, union- 
ism is carried to the graveside. Union 
obsequies, as a local periodical informs us, have long been 
within the ambition of any man in the community. " Indeed, 
he could hardly avoid them without previous removal from 
the town. To be put in a certificated, standard-made, union- 
labelled coffin, drawn by a union-built hearse, the horses duly 
shod by the Horseshoers' Union, and the body committed to 
earth under the authority of a walking delegate in the promise 
of a happy reunion beyond the grave, has been the common 
lot of man — at least in these parts. No cemetery is boycotted 
here, and no warnings of ' Unfair ! ' have as yet fallen on the 
ears of the mourners. But there has been one lack, which is 
now supplied, the services of an organised minister who is 
opposed to all scab committals. Such a man has risen to the 
occasion. True, there is no organisation of labour except 
a miscalled Ministerial Union, in which a preacher can hold 
a card ; but our esteemed labour contemporary, the Post, 
has found a man of the cloth whose principles are as acceptable 
to organised labour as were those of the white preacher at a 
negro funeral to the congregation, which was assured that 
* while his skin am white his heart am as black as ours.' This 
gentleman, the Rev. WiUiam Nat Friend, of the Howard 
Presb}i;erian Church, is organised labour sanctified in the 



224 America of the Americans 

flesh. We learn from the Post that Mr. Friend has given 
out that the presentation of a card will entitle any dead 
person, in good standing with his union at the time of his 
decease, to enjoy a thoroughly unionised funeral in ground 
presumably consecrated to St. Gompers." This union cleric 
at the same time announced his willingness to conduct 
orthodox union weddings at a reasonable rate. 

Among the methods adopted by organised labour in the 

United States for the accompHshment of its ends has been a 

form of indirect boycott known as the Union 

The Union j^^^j ^^^^ ^ ^ trade-mark owned and 

i-abel. . , - . -r . f 

registered by a given union. Its use is, of 

course, permitted only to those firms which employ union 
labour ; and when it is attached to articles it is a guarantee 
that those articles have been made under the conditions 
stipulated and approved by the union concerned in the pro- 
duction of those commodities. The Federation urges upon 
all its members to demand goods bearing the union label 
and to decHne to purchase any other. This indirect boycott 
has grown to enormous dimensions, for the hatters' union in 
one recent year issued no fewer than 12,000,000 labels. 
Nearly sixty unions have their own labels, and although no 
recent statistics are available it is estimated that from 1885 
to 1900 more than 100,000,000 had been put in circulation. 
As its use is equal to putting a manufacturer on the " fair hst," 
it is obvious that the label is a potent weapon of intimidation. 
Such a passive device, however, is unimportant compared 
with the zest with which American unions employ the boycott 

and the strike. The former has often been 
an?^the°sSike attempted on a large scale, and has sometimes 

been successful owing to difference of legal 
opinion. Several States, however, have adopted laws against 
the boycott, while in no case decided by the higher courts 
has a boycott by workmen been expressly declared legal. 
But it is in strikes that American organised labour has been 
most conspicuous, as though the members of the Federation 



Social Problems 225 

were determined to uphold the reputation of the country for 
doing things on the largest scale. It is highly significant, too, 
that whereas in 1885 the number of strikes was only 645, in 
the following year, which witnessed the formation of the 
Federation of Labour, the total had increased to 1,432. In 
two years, 1902 and 1903, there were more than 3,000 strikes, 
while the average for the past decade has exceeded 2,000. 
Many of these conflicts between labour and capital have 
assumed mammoth proportions, including the Homestead 
strike of 1892, the Pullman strike of 1894, and the Steel strike 
of 1901, and they have resulted in serious loss of life, embit- 
tered relations, and huge losses in money. It has been 
estimated, indeed, that during a period of twenty years the 
strikes and lock-outs of the United States have entailed a loss 
, of $468,968,581. On several occasions the rioting accom- 
j panying these strikes has involved such danger to pubhc 
I safety that the Federal troops have been used to restore 
i order. At bottom the question of labour versus capital was 
responsible for the famous trial and execution of the Chicago 
1 Anarchists. 

But the unions have not been allowed to have everything 
J their own way. It is a pertinent illustration of the importance 
S oi this problem to the nation at large that a 

I Strike-breaking strike-breaking agency has long been in 
* ' operation to thwart the efforts of the unions. 

. This particular agency has some 225,000 men on its books, 
1 all of whom have been specially selected for their physical 
fitness and skill in particular occupations. The candidates, 
i indeed, have to pass a severe examination by a committee, 
who make stringent inquiry into their character as well as 
i their other qualifications. As soon as a strike is declared, 
j the employer concerned informs the agency of his require- 
1 ments, when they forward the necessary number of men, 

iwho have to sign an agreement to remain at work for at least 
thirty days. The agency even provides a protective staff 
to guard the strike-breakers against violence. Then there is 

< 15— (2393A) 



226 America of the Americans 

the Pinkerton Agency, the members of which consist of armed 
men, who undertake to defend factories and strike-breakers 
in times of industrial disturbance. 

Far more significant, however, of the problem of labour 
versus capital is the enormous body of labour legislation 
inscribed on the statute-books of the various 
Labour States year by year. Owing, as has been 
remarked, to the fact that the unions dechne 
to affiliate themselves with any poHtical party, they are able 
to bargain their vote to the best advantage, and the practical 
result of that crafty policy is cogently illustrated by the 
innumerable labour laws enacted in the different States last 
year. For example, in Arizona there was passed an eight-hour 
law for women, in Arkansas the Employers' LiabiHty Act was 
extended to all corporations, in California an eight-hour law 
for underground workers was enacted, in Connecticut a 
Workmen's Compensation Act was adopted, Delaware passed 
an Act to regulate child labour, in Idaho the eight-hour law 
was applied to all public works, and in nearly every other 
State the year's legislation bore evidence to the influence of 
organised labour. The record of New York was unique in 
that respect, for a summary of the legislation of that State for 
1913 included the following : 

Amending the Labour law in relation to cleanliness of rooms 
in factories by making the provisions of the existing law more 
stringent. 

Amending the Labour law in relation to protecting the 
health and morals of females employed in factories by pro- 
viding that no woman shall be permitted to work before 
6 in the morning or after 10 o'clock in the evening. 

Amending the Labour law by providing that every factory 
employer shall maintain hving quarters in a thoroughly 
sanitary condition and authorising the Commissioner of Labour 
to inspect such quarters. 

Providing that all children between fourteen and sixteen 
years of age shall submit to a physical examination whenever 



Social Problems 227 

required by a physical inspector of the State Labour Depart- 
ment, and providing for a cancellation of employment 
certificate if the child is found to be ph3/sically unfit. 

But in addition to securing many reasonable ameliorations 
of the conditions of industry, the influence of organised labour 
has been a considerable factor in that anti- 
A^itations* Trust legislation and prosecution which have 
figured so notably in the recent history of the 
United States. It is true that the Sherman Anti-Trust Act 
has unexpectedly proved a boomerang to some of the trade 
unions, leading to violent agitations for the repeal of certain 
of its clauses, but in its genesis it was an attempt to protect 
labour as well as the consumer against any conspiracy or 
combination " in restraint of trade." Indeed, there is nothing 
to choose between the poHcy of the labour unions and that of 
the trusts. As Chancellor Day has reminded his countrymen, 
labour " curses monopoly, but it is a monopohst. It accuses 
i * employers of using combined capital,' which is another name 
I for the corporation, of 'debasing labour and denying it its 
i lawful and just share of what it produces,' and then proceeds 
I with violent and degrading assaults, sometimes even with 
'death, to debase and make impossible all labour that does not 
I obey its unlawful and tyrannical miandates, establishing a 
labour trust ! It is as much a monopoly as anything we find 
•|in the most offending trust. It attempts to be a labour trust, 
land that which it claims for itself it clamorously denies to 
jcapital. It insists upon having the exclusive monopolist 
"(rights of the country ! Finding its greatest obstacle in cor- 
porations which have strength to resist it and power often 
;]to overthrow it, the labour unions naturally make their most 
[furious assaults against them, and having active and voiceful 
jnumbers in the cities, they are able to command the pohticians 
knd demand laws to further their designs. They will not make 
jany concessions to the mighty labour employers upon any 
erms that do not recognise a practical partnership in the 
>usiness, a dictatorial one, a managing and controlling one." 



228 America of the Americans 

How this serious problem is to be solved does not yet 
appear. The antagonism of labour and capital has created an 
atmosphere unfavourable to a just settlement. Public 
opinion, in fact, has been poisoned against the corporation. 
Much of the mud thrown has stuck. There is a general feeling 
that the trusts are grinding the faces of the poor. Hence 
although the programme of the Progressives bristles with the 
reforms which the party is pledged to secure on behalf of the 
workers, it is barren of a constructive policy in relation to the 
trusts. Happily, however, the unreasoning hostility to 
corporations is beginning to soften, owing, for one thing, to the 
discovery that the notorious Sherman Act is a spurious 
panacea. It is being recognised that the day of the small 
trader is nearly over, and that combinations in some form are 
inevitable. Perhaps, in the end, some form of regulation 
may be devised which can be apphcable to organised labour 
and organised capital alike. The Republicans naturally look 
to find the remedy in an increase of Federal legislation, while 
the Democrats just as naturally are seeking a solution which 
shall not infringe State rights. 

If, on a broad view, America lags behind Europe in its 
protective legislation, having no such code of labour laws 

as has been formulated in Great Britain, it is 
Child jjj connection with child labour that this 

deficiency is most marked. There are upwards 
of 2,000,000 children under the age of sixteen engaged as 
wage-earners, yet America is, Miss Addams asserts, sixty- 
two years " behind England in caring for the children of 
the textile industries." Why that indifference ? Is it due 
to the disposition of the last century to love children 
without really knowing them ? " We refuse," Miss Addams 
says, " to recognise them as the great national asset and are 
content to surround them with a glamour of innocence and 
charm. We put them prematurely to work, ignorant of the 
havoc it brings, because no really careful study has been made 
of their capacities and possibilities — that is, no study really 



Social Problems 229 

fitted to the industrial conditions in which they live." This 
is another matter in which, unfortunately, each State is a law 
unto itself. That is to say, there is no national control over 
child labour ; on the contrary, it is regulated or not regulated 
according to the whim of the forty-eight different legislatures 
of the States. Yet the number of children employed in 
manufacturing industries has increased twice as fast as the 
population. 

But the conscience of the nation is being quickened in 
various ways. It is being pointed out that when the future 
recruits of the industrial population are set to work at a 
premature age there is a tendency to exhaust that physical 
reserve which would be their best asset to the community 
in their adult years, and that this must react upon the quality 
of the nation's products. " We may gradually discover," 
it has been remarked, " that in the interests of this industrial 
society of ours it becomes a distinct loss to put large numbers 
of producers prematurely at work, not only because the com- 
munity inevitably loses their mature working power, but also 
because their ' free labour quality,' which is so valuable, is 
prematurely destroyed." Hence increasing attention is 
being devoted to the evil effects of posture in certain occupa- 
tions, and an agitation has arisen for a physiological test by 
Rontgen rays to decide the age at which a child may be 
allowed to become a wage-earner. In addition there are 
numerous societies now in existence which have taken this 
I problem into consideration and are exerting beneficent 
I influence in various ways. An International Child Labour 
j Committee was founded in 1904, and since that date many 
I of the States have enacted several laws to regulate the 
employment of children. The problem, however, will not 
be definitely solved until there is complete uniformity in 
the matter of compulsory education as well as in child labour 
legislation. 

One reason why there is an increasing interest in laws for 
the regulation of child labour may be found in the connection 



230 America of the Americans 

between child labour and child delinquency. Many of the 
occupations open to children of both sexes are of a kind 
which makes them acquainted with the evils 
■ (^ime ^^ ^^^y ^^^^' ^^^ from that familiarity the down- 

ward descent is easy. But the growing regard 
for child life which is represented by the ever-swelling volume 
of legislation in relation to juvenile labour is also manifesting 
itself in another and even more helpful direction. To the 
credit of the United States it should be remembered that for 
many years the treatment of juvenile offenders has been based 
upon the principle that premature crime should be dealt with 
by methods differing from the punitive ideals of ordinary 
prisons ; that, in fact, as youthful offenders are often more 
sinned against than sinning, society has no right to effect its 
defence by the punishment which is right in the case of adult 
criminals. 

While the foregoing theory found early expression in such 
model reformatories as those of Elmira and Concord, it has 
since taken a more concrete form in the 
T ^^^-1 Juvenile Court. Although Chicago has the 

Court. distinction of estabhshing the first of these 
courts at the suggestion of Judge Richard 
Tuthill, and notwithstanding the high reputation of that at 
Indianapohs, it is Judge B. Lindsay's court at Denver which 
has achieved the most remarkable results. The prime ideas 
involved in the Juvenile Court are to protect young offenders 
from the contamination of hardened criminals, to secure 
privacy for the hearing of charges, to enable judges to give 
particular attention to each case, to make punishment educa- 
tional instead of punitive, and to decide whether the child 
shall be sent to a reformatory, or be placed on probation under 
supervision. When the judge has so many unique quahfica- 
tions as the president of the Denver court, including, as in 
Judge Lindsay's case, a charming personahty, a penetrating 
comprehension of child nature, and extraordinary psychic 
influence, the results may be imagined. Much, also, depends 



Social Problems 231 

upon the probation officers, and there is now a movement to 
offer them salaries sufficiently large to secure the best type of 
men and women, though in many cities the work is undertaken 
and efficiently carried out by volunteers. The Juvenile Court 
has now been tested for fifteen years, and statistics show that 
among the children who were placed on probation the per- 
centage of those who appear to have been effectually reclaimed 
is very high, especially in the case of boys. 

Doubtless it will have been noticed that the Progressive 
programme quoted on a previous page makes not the remotest 

allusion to the negro problem, an omission 
^he'^Negro^ which may probably be accounted for by the 

desire of the Progressives to capture the labour 
vote. For there is no affinity between labour and colour. 
That " all men are created equal " may have been a " self- 
evident " truth to the authors of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, but it is evidently a pernicious doctrine in the 
estimation of organised labour. It is not merely in the South 
but in the North as well that the labour unions by their 
by-laws expressly exclude negroes from membership. Con- 
sequently the silence of the Progressive party as to the 
" colour question " is quite explicable ; to pronounce on that 
problem would be to endanger the solidarity of the labour vote. 
But the RepubHcan party does now and then nibble at the 
subject, mainly, it is to be feared, for the ends of practical 

pohtics, for that organisation is naturally 
Pn)blem.° anxious to redress its adverse balance of votes 

in the Democratic South. Hence in the 
Republican platform of 1904 there was a " plank " to the 
effect that the party favoured Congressional action against 
those States which by " special discrimination " Hmited their 
elective franchise. Again, in 1904 the Repubhcans made a 
demand for " the preservation of the rights of the negro 
and for the enforcement of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and 
Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution." The challenge 
of 1904 was met by the Democrats in an indignant strain ; 



232 America of the Americans 

they deprecated and condemned " the Bourbon-like, selfish, 
and narrow spirit " of their opponents in attempting to 
" kindle anew the embers of racial and sectional strife." After 
all, the Repubhcans are pursuing a veritable will-o'-the-wisp 
in their efforts to secure the votes of the " free and equal " 
negroes of the South, for most of the old slave States have 
taken effective means to nullify the franchise conferred by the 
Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. 

In fact the franchise situation in the land of the " free and 
equal " is a ludicrous anomaly. The Indian, the original 

owner of the country, does not count unless 
Franchise ^le agrees to renounce his tribe and conform 

to the habits of the white man ; but the 
negro, who is really an ahen, is theoretically the equal of the 
white citizen socially and politically. The Oriental, however, 
is an utter outcast, especially in the far West. " We are " — 
an eminent professor of comparative legislation has admitted 
— " a red, white, and black country, but not a brown or yellow 
one." Along the Pacific Coast, which owes so much to Asiatic 
labour for its early development, the opposition to the Chinese 
and Japanese is so intense that it is a constant menace to the 
international relations of the entire Union. A Cahfornian 
would rather see San Francisco devastated by another " fire " 
than agree that the " free and equal " doctrine should be 
appHed to an Asiatic. 

But the case of the negro is perhaps the hardest of all. 
It was, and still is, imagined that his status had been settled 

once for all by the Civil War. But it has not. 

The Negro j^ie " coloured person " is in the United 

Disfranchised. ^ , ^ . ^^ . , , , r 

States, but not of it. He has the shadow of 

political and social equality without its substance. The 

purpose of the three famous Amendments to the Constitution 

was to give the negro a legal, poHtical, and social equality, 

but only the first has been secured. Politically, for example, 

the negro of the Southern States is practically as disfranchised 

as in the old days of slavery, for in order to counteract the 



Social Problems 233 

Fifteenth Amendment many of those States have adopted 
such quahfications for voters as effectually prevent negroes 
reaching the poll. The result of those restrictions may be 
gathered from the statistics for South Carolina and Mississippi. 
" It appears that in those States there were 350,796 adult 
male negroes in 1900, and that the total Republican vote (in 
both States) in the national election of that year was only 
5,443. At a rough guess, perhaps 2,000 of this number were 
cast by white men, and the conclusion must be that about 
ninety-nine negroes out of every hundred failed to vote for 
President in those States." Hence the eagerness of the 
Repubhcans to prevent the " special discrimination " which 
affects their vote so seriously. Yet no serious effort has been 
made to challenge the suffrage laws which have had this 
marked effect ; in avoiding giving any pronounced decision 
upon such cases as have been brought before it, the Supreme 
Court has no doubt been influenced by the prevaihng sentiment 
of the country at large. 

Nor has the negro secured that social equality which seemed 
to be assured him by the Amendments to the Constitution. 

Custom, of course, is an important factor, 
No Social •\^■^^^ ^^ many matters it is supported by law. 
the^Negro°^ The situation is summed up by Professor F. J. 

Stimson in the following statement : " Legis- 
lation now exists in all Southern States as to separate, though 
equal, accommodations in public conveyances ; at one time 
such statutes were restricted to interstate commerce, but the 
present tendency of court decision appears to be to recognise 
even their interference with interstate commerce as part of 
the reasonable State police jurisdiction. Such statutes 
apply generally to railroads, steamboats, and street cars, or 
other conveyances of transportation. They are not so 
usual as to hotels, eating-houses, theatres, or other pubHc 
places, probably because it is more easy to secure the desired 
segregation without legislation. We may, therefore, conclude 
that legislation on this point will be universal in the South 



234 America of the Americans 

and in Oklahoma, or other border States with Southern 
sympathies, and will not be declared unconstitutional by the 
courts." It should be added also that there are stringent 
laws against miscegenation or even cohabitation between 
black and white. 

This violent contrast between theory and practice, the 
giving of " free and equal " rights with one hand and taking 
them away with the other, creates in some Americans an 
uneasy feehng. Their chief apology is that America has 
never been profoundly impressed with the idea of philosophical 
consistency. " The Repubhc," remarks Professor Van Dyke, 
" finds herself face to face not with a theory but with a con- 
dition. It is the immense mass of the African population 
that creates the difficulty for America. She means to give 
civil rights to her nine miUion negroes. She does not mean 
to let the black blood mix with the white. Whatever social 
division may be necessary to prevent this immense and 
formidable adulteration must be maintained intact. . . . 
In a sense the problem appears insoluble because it involves 
an insoluble race." 

In view of that frank statement of the doctrine of inferior 
races, so contrary to the " self-evident " truth of the fathers 

of the Repubhc, it is interesting, and perhaps 
St^t'^t° comforting for Americans, to observe that the 

proportion of the negro element in the United 
States has shown a tendency to decrease during the last thirty 
years. In 1880 the negro percentage was 13.1, whereas in 
1910 it had fallen to 10.7. But it should be remembered 
that that apparent dechne is explained by the increase in 
immigration, for while in 1880 the immigrants numbered 
only 457,257 in 1910, they totaled 1,041,570. There is no 
actual decrease in the " immense mass " of the negro popula- 
tion, for the 1880 total of 6,580,793 had gro\vn in 1910 to 
9,828,294. The change in their status, however, which 
resulted from the Civil War has introduced a new factor which 
may eventually decrease their relative proportion, for it has 



Social Problems 235 

been shown that city Hfe exercises a powerful and growing 
influence in reducing their birth-rate. At the same time, the 
negro, according to his most strenuous advocate, Booker T. 
Washington, has made considerable progress in many direc- 
tions, for he is responding more completely to educational 
influences, is losing his thriftless habits, and is rapidly develop- 
ing into a property-owner. But, on the other side of the 
account, it is necessary to remember that urban negroes 
are far more addicted to crime than the whites, and that in 
the Northern cities he often carries himself with an insolence 
which is significant of the problem his presence involves. 

In fact, as long as " Jim Crow " laws are passed and upheld 
by the courts, the negroes will remain a distinct caste within 

the Union, and a permanent object-lesson of 
" "^^ Law?''''' " ^^^ futility of the " free and equal " theory. 

In those parts of the country where they form 
a large percentage of the population they are segregated in 
a most effective manner, for in addition to their inability to 
travel with whites they are kept apart in schools, in barber 
shops, in bath-houses, in railroad refreshment-rooms, and 
even in prisons. In some of the Northern States, however, 
the tendency of recent years has been towards a relaxation 
of this discriminating legislation, for in New York the separate 
school has been abolished. Nor is that all. Among the 
measures passed by the New York legislature last year was an 
amendment to the civil rights law providing that any written 
or printed communication denying accommodation or privi- 
leges in places of public accomniodation, resort, or amusement 
to any person because of race, creed, or colour shall be pre- 
sumptive evidence in any action that the statement was 
authorised. In other words, it will be illegal for a hotel- 
keeper or theatre proprietor to write or print his refusal to 
provide a bedroom or a seat to a negro. But it is still possible 
for the desk-clerk of a hotel or the box-office attendant at a 
theatre to keep the negro at arm's length by a viva voce asser- 
tion that there is " no room." Hence it seems highly probable 



236 America of the Americans 

that the negro, no matter what his wealth, who wishes to 
enjoy the theatre will have to be content with the " Niggers' 
heaven," to wit the gallery, and that if he is in need of hotel 
accommodation he will have to seek it in hostelries restricted 
to his ov^Ti race. For he presents such an insoluble problem 
that up to the present all the laws passed for his social 
amehoration can be circumvented without any serious 
risk. 

If, then, the formidable Amendments to the Constitution, 
and the State legislation based thereon, have proved so 

ineffective in the case of the negro, it is hardly 
Prohibition surprising: that the attempt to interfere in the 

region of morals represented by the Prohibition 
movement has been equally unsuccessful. It is another of 
the curious anomahes of the United States that in a country 
so wedded to individualism, legal compulsion has been more 
in favour than voluntary persuasion. But the results of 
prohibition are another proof of the old saying about the 
impossibility of making people sober by Acts of Parhament. 
What those results have been may be illustrated by a few- 
statistics. If we take the annual drink bill for 1878 we find 
that the expenditure per head of the population amounted to 
$9 (£1 18s.), but by 1907 the average expenditure had gone 
on regularly increasing to the sum of |20 (£4), or more than 
double the average of 1878. Again, the consumption of 
intoxicating Hquors during the decade dating from 1902 
increased from 1,539,859,237 to 2,128,452,226 gallons. In 
the same period the internal revenue receipts from spirits 
and fermented liquors increased from $193,126,915 to 
$219,660,257. On the other hand, the figures adduced by the 
Prohibitionists do not seem particularly convincing. For 
example, it is cited as a great triumph that in the State of 
Iowa four years of prohibition yielded sixty fewer prisoners 
than four anti-prohibition years, ignoring the fact that in the 
second period the population had increased by nearly 300,000. 
In fact, there is no gainsaying the conclusion that " the 



Social Problems 237 

wealthier classes have no difficulty in getting their liquor 
through interstate commerce, while the more disreputable 
classes succeed in getting it surreptitiously. Prohibition, 
therefore, if effective at all, is probably only effective among 
the respectable middle class where, perhaps, of all it is least 
needed." 

Nevertheless, the Prohibition party continues its campaign 
and its fruitless efforts to return its candidate to the White 

House. At no time has it had the remotest 

Political chance of achieving the latter distinction. 

Prohibition. Even in its best year the Prohibition vote for 

President only amounted to 258,536, while 
at the last election it had diminished to 207,928. Its pro- 
gramme, however, is as austere as ever ; denouncing the 
" lack of statesmanship " and the " cowardice " of Democrats 
and Republicans alike for their failure to tackle the problem, 
and demanding legislation " prohibiting and abohshing the 
manufacture, importation, transportation, and sale of alco- 
holic beverages." Even if individual States were to adopt 
such a heroic poHcy, the consumer of intoxicants has a safe- 
guard in the Supreme Court and Congress, for it is unthinkable 
that there shall ever be any obstacle to that interstate com- 
merce which will supply the private person at least with what 
hquors he may require. The movement, indeed, is chiefly 
interesting as an illustration of the somewhat mercurial 
manner in which the American mind will now and then 
address itself to the solution of social problems, for all the 
prohibited laws (and they are beyond number) have utterly 
failed to control the drink traffic, and there is no refuting the 
assertion that when the trade is made illegal it is still carried 
on quite openly. The unfortunate result is that all these 
efforts of the prohibitionists tend to bring legislation as such 
into disrepute. 

Yet it must not be imagined that all native efforts to 
grapple with social problems belong to the same category. 
On the contrary, by settlements, by private and pubUc 



238 America of the Americans 

organisation, by high-minded individual exertions, there is at 
work all over the country a sane force that makes for the 
righteousness of the community. That force is but another 
phase of the inexhaustible friendhness which is so characteristic 
of the American temperament. 



CHAPTER XIII 

PLAY-TIME 

Have Americans any time for play ? Or have they even a 
desire for recreation ? Owing to the universal impression 
that they are " husthng " from morning to night, that their 
pursuit of the dollar never ceases, that they are supposed to 
count every minute lost which does not produce some financial 
gain, many will perhaps be disposed to answer both questions 
in the negative. It must be confessed that Americans are 
themselves largely responsible for this all but universal 
tradition. They give their votes in the largest number to the 
men who " get results " ; they subscribe without reserve 
to the doctrine of " the strenuous Ufe " ; they are, on their 
own confession, " money-mad " ; the bulk of their legislation 
is concerned with business affairs, for at all times the law- 
makers seem to be thinking chiefly of capital and labour ; and 
even education is principally regarded from the standpoint of, 
" Will it pay ? " 

Nevertheless, as has been shown in the chapter on " Plays 

and Players," there are plenty of Americans who find time 

for the recreation of the theatre. And it 

thf TlTeib-f ^^y ^^ doubted whether that form of pleasure 
is more liberally supported in any other 
country. No doubt it is true that the " show-girl " type of 
production, of which pulchritude is the chief asset, can always 
count upon the largest patronage ; but the classical drama 
and even the problem play are by no means neglected. In 
fact the prosperity of the theatre in its entire scope would be 
sufficient to refute the idea that Americans are wholly absorbed 
in business and money-making. 

But there are other proofs. In the latest issue of the 
World Almanac nearly a hundred pages are devoted to a 

239 



240 America of the Americans 

chronicle of the bare records of the games and sports of 
a single year. That record includes particulars of track and 
field athletics, archery, gymnastics, court ten- 
Games Played ^jg rowine, polo, ice-yachting, racquets, bowl- 
by Americans. . ' ^ • i. • xt i x- 

mg, lawn-tennis, boxmg, wrestlmg, skatmg, 

baseball, trap shooting, rifle shooting, chess, basketball, 
fencing, football, curling, lacrosse, ski-ing, cricket, golf, racing, 
bicycling, swimming, yachting, hockey, and anghng. And 
when it is remembered that nearly a hundred pages of small, 
closely-printed type are necessary to chronicle the bare 
records of these and other pastimes, it will become obvious 
that the general conception of the American character needs 
considerable correction. 

Doubtless many will be surprised to find cricket included 
in the above list. For one may travel far and wide in the 

United States and remain in certain districts 
Cricket. year after year without discovering any trace 

of the great summer game of England. 
Yet it will not be forgotten that the English cricket season 
has been enlivened now and then by visits from the Gentlemen 
of Philadelphia, who have demonstrated that American 
cricket has produced some first-rate batsmen and bowlers. 
The game, however, is principally confined to three or four 
districts. It might have been otherwise if it had attained any 
considerable development at the time of the sailing of the 
May-flower, but it is to be feared that the prodigious cargo 
which was apparently carried on that vessel did not include 
bats and stumps and balls. Still, one of the associations 
which foster the game in America is located in New England, 
although the headquarters of cricket are in the Quaker 
city of Philadelphia. There are, however, two organisations 
in the metropohs and its vicinity, the New York and New 
Jersey Cricket Association and the Metropohtan District 
Cricket League, which embrace six and nine clubs respect- 
ively. But in New York as well as Philadelphia the game is 
followed more for its own sake than for " gate-money " ; 



Play-time 241 

consequently it is free from that professionalism which is so 
conspicuous in many other sports. The batting and bowling 
averages of the metropohtan clubs would do credit to any 
EngHsh county teams, for the batsmen vary from 70.42 to 
21.50, while the bowlers can claim such excellent figures as 
from 11.33 to 5.32. A member of a Pittsburg club can claim 
the best batting record of the United States by having scored 
three consecutive centuries in one week, while a member of 
the Germantown club distinguished himself against the 
Austrahan team by catching out ten men in one game. For 
the average American, however, cricket is " too slow " to 
become widely popular ; that it is played with such zest in 
Philadelphia is probably regarded as another proof of the 
lethargy of that city. 

Only three of the universities are represented in the Inter- 
collegiate Cricket League, whereas most of the leading 
universities are keenly interested in rowing. 
Rowing. Apart from the 'varsity eight-oar races in 
which, in 1913, six universities took part, 
the great rowing event of the year is the race between Harvard 
and Yale. That contest is the duplicate of England's Oxford 
and Cambridge race, and, fittingly enough, it is rowed on the 
Thames near New London. The fixture dates from 1852, 
when Harvard won over the two-mile course on Lake Winni- 
piseogee, and up to 1913 each university had placed 
twenty-three victories to its credit. Some excellent times 
have been made, but the 18 minutes 47 seconds of Cambridge 
has never been approached. Nor does the race excite that 
rivalry among the juvenile population which is so notable 
a feature of the English contest ; it is more purely a university 
affair, serious enough for the combatants, but for the specta- 
tors a delightful river picnic. At various times university 
crews have entered at Henley, and in 1906, it will be remem- 
bered. Harvard unsuccessfully challenged Cambridge on the 
Putney course ; and if these invasions have not always resul- 
ted in victory they have been the means of quickening 

i6— (2393A) 



242 America of the Americans 

enthusiasm for rowing at most of the colleges. America, 
indeed, now has its own Henley on the Schuylkill River ; 
while regattas are beyond count. 

If cricket is a thought " too slow " for the American tem- 
perament, it might be imagined that golf, which has been 

called " the old man's game," would hardly 
Golf. commend itself to so restless a people. Quite 

the contrary, however. Although the " royal 
and ancient " pastime was practically unknown so recently 
as at the opening of the final decade of the last century, it has 
since " caught on " to a truly surprising extent. It has 
already been quoted that the business man declines to waste 
time in the barber's shop because he is in a hurry to get to the 
links, and although it has been seen that he is still prodigal 
of his minutes in the barber's shop, there is no questioning the 
zest with which he pursues the new recreation. The golf 
joke is now as firmly established in the comic papers as the 
Kentucky colonel, while advertisers of the most expensive 
motor-cars in their gorgeous pictures of those vehicles, usually 
introduce a bag of clubs in the hands of one of the occupants. 
But, as hinted above, it is not merely the " idle rich " who have 
fallen victims to the game ; the business man and the upper- 
middle classes have welcomed it as an inducement to outdoor 
exercise. So widespread, indeed, is the devotion to the game 
that, in addition to an amateur championship for women, 
there are Federal open and amateur championships, while the 
State and sectional championships make a formidable list. 
There are also numerous team matches with valuable trophies, 
and all the leading universities participate in the Inter- 
collegiate contest. As money is a secondary consideration 
with the American when his interest is aroused, it follows that 
countless links of first-rate quahty have been laid out in the 
best style by the most skilful professionals from Great Britain, 
that the leading Scottish and English professionals have been 
imported as instructors and green-keepers, and that the club 
houses are the most sumptuous in the world. Nor should it 



Play-time 243 

be overlooked that American ingenuity is responsible for that 
rubber-cored golf ball which is now so universally used, and 
has had so notable an influence on the game. In less than a 
quarter of a century American golfers have become serious 
rivals to the finest British players, and already one has 
captured the British amateur championship. 

Another old-world game in which Americans have dis- 
tinguished themselves is polo. Of course, it is not a game 
for the masses, but that very fact has wholly 
Polo. preserved it from the taint of professionahsm, 

and has proved to the world that the often- 
derided wealthy American can put up as vigorous a fight in 
hard riding and hitting, and is as clean a sportsman as can 
be found in any country. It was a milHonaire, Harry Payne 
Whitney, who was the captain and financier of the famous 
" Big Four," a combination which captured the cup in 
1909, and successfully defended it until 1914. The last 
international match provided an excellent illustration of the 
interest taken in the game in the United States. The Meadow- 
brook ground, finely situated on Long Island about a dozen 
miles from New York, with its standing-room at 50 cts. (2s.) 
each person, and reserved boxes on the grand stand at $250 
(£50) each, was taxed to its utmost capacity by a crowd of 
about 50,000, representing a " gate " of some $200,000 
(£40,000) . It is a recent and pleasant memory how Mr. Payne 
volunteered, in the spirit of the true sportsman, to postpone 
the match owing to an injury to a member of the EngHsh team, 
but it may not be so well known that during each of the games 
the vast crowd, though naturally anxious for the victory of the 
American four, was unstinted in its applause of the Enghsh 
players. The New York press, too, was unanimous in its 
praise of the form displayed by the English victors. On all 
occasions, indeed, American polo players have ever shown 
themselves the finest of sportsmen in defeat as well as in 
victory. 

As Long Island is most intimately associated with the 



244 America of the Americans 

big events of American polo, it is appropriate that the beau- 
tiful reaches of Long Island Sound should be the chief arena 

of the country's other expensive recreation 
Yacht- qI yachting. Thanks to the well-advertised 

ventures of successive Shamrocks, American 
superiority in yacht-racing is familiar enough, yet few who 
have not consulted the table of the contests for the America's 
Cup have any idea how pronounced that superiority is. It 
was as far back as 1851 that the America captured the trophy 
given by the Ro5^al Yacht Squadron at Cowes, and from that 
date till now the Cup has remained in the possession of the 
New York Yacht Club despite countless efforts to fetch it 
back to England. Such a fact is an eloquent tribute to the 
skill in construction and saihng which have marked the history 
of American yacht-racing. Naturally American ideas have 
consequently had a marked influence on yacht-building all 
over the world. But the yachtsmen of the New World are 
not entirely absorbed in the problem of retaining the America's 
Cup ; for although the motor-boat is now largely in evidence 
in American shore waters, there does not appear to be any 
diminution of interest in sailing. In the early days of summer 
Long Island Sound is covered with white wings, and as the 
season advances the boats of the New York Club start off on 
that cruise round the Cape of Marblehead which gives so much 
pleasure to the resorts along the Eastern coast. At numerous 
other points on the long American seaboard, too, there are 
races and regattas beyond enumeration, most of the competing 
vessels being remarkable for those picturesque qualities for 
which American yachts are distinguished. 

Turning to games of a more popular nature, it is significant 
of American willingness to adopt any recreation (no matter 

what its nationahty) which appeals to their 
Tennis temperament that within a year of its 

invention by Major Wingfield lawn-tennis was 
being played near Boston. And to-day there is hardly another 
game which is so popular among actual participants, as 




i PI - ^ 




1^ 



,'^,'S 





Play-time 245 

contrasted with spectators who wish to be entertained, all 
over the Union. It will not be forgotten that the " American 
service " betrays the land of its origin, or that the famous 
Davis Cup was given by the American whose name it bears. 
If the United States has only held that Cup on three occasions 
as compared with the nine on which it has been captured by 
British and Australian teams, and if America has not yet 
produced players of the rank of the Renshaws or Dohertys, 
it must be remembered that the brothers Sears did invaluable 
service in making the game known to their countrymen, and 
were fine exponents of volleying. Apart from the countless 
thousands who, virginibus puerisque, find in lawn-tennis so 
excellent an opportunity for summer courtship, the national 
and State and local championships and the intercollegiate 
contests are a valuable factor in physical culture and innocent 
pleasure. 

But the most popular summer game of America is baseball. 

It can count its votaries by the hundred thousands in all 

parts of the Union. To excel as a pitcher or 

Baseball. catcher is the ambition of every lad ; to watch 

famous exponents in league matches is the 

darling occupation of the same lad in middle age or senile 

years. The leading players are national heroes, commanding 

more reverence than ex-Presidents or milhonaires. When 

they have finally " struck out,'* and left the " diamond " 

for good, they become " stars " of vaudeville or the comic 

opera. And the money expended on " ball " every season 

would represent a total not unworthy of the land of huge 

records. 

Baseball has, for one thing, the prime quahty of appeahng 
to the patriotic instinct. Those critics who affirm that it is 
nothing more than a glorified version of the English pastime 
of rounders are derided for their ignorance ; they are firmly 
reminded of the existence of one Abner Doubleday, who 
" invented " the game at Cooperstown in 1839. The dispute 
will never be settled, even though there is such a strong family 



246 America of the Americans 

likeness between the two games as makes it unthinkable that 
baseball is not a plagiarism from rounders. But whatever 
the origin, it would be folly to deny that the game as played 
in America is as characteristic of the country as clam-chowder. 
Why, its vocabulary alone would stamp its trans-Atlantic 
character. Even the Century Dictionary, which ought to be 

an unfaihng resource on Americanisms, fails 
^^Ba^selT/n °^ *° enlighten us as to the meaning of " bunt," 

or " fly," or *' slide," or " sacrifice-hit," or 
" two-baggers," and the Hke. Apart, too, from the weird 
lingo of the game, with its " fans " and " bleachers " and 
" short-end men," its demands upon the newspaper reporters 
have resulted in a style of writing which is more native than 
any other product of the United States. As an example of 
how language has been taxed to describe the game, the 
following account from the Quincy Herald of a match between 
the nines of Quincy and Omaha is a classic : " The glass- 
armed toy soldiers of this town were fed to the pigs yesterday 
by the cadaverous Indian grave-robbers from Omaha. The 
flabby, one-lunged Rubens who represent the Gem City in 
the reckless rush for the baseball pennant had their shins 
toasted by the basihsk-eyed cattle-drivers from the West. 
They stood around with gaping eyeballs, hke a hen on a hot 
nail, and suffered the grizzly yawps of Omaha to run the bases 
till their necks were long with thirst. Hickey had more errors 
than Coin's Financial School, and led the rheumatic procession 
to the morgue. The Quincys were full of straw and scrap-iron. 
They couldn't hit a brick-wagon with a pick-axe, and ran 
bases like pall-bearers at a funeral. If three-base hits were 
growing on the back of every man's neck they couldn't reach 
'em with a feather-duster. It looked as if the Amalgamated 
Union of South American Hoodoos were in session for work 
in the thirty-third degree. The geezers stood about and 
whistled for help, and were so weak they couldn't Hft a glass 
of beer if it had been all foam. Everything was yellow, rocky 
and whangblasted, like a stigtossel full of doggie-gammon. 



Play-time 247 

The game was whiskered and frostbitten. The Omahogs 
were bad enough, but the Quincy Brown Sox had their fins 
sewed up until they couldn't hold a crazy quilt unless it was 
tied around their necks." 

In more sedate literature baseball is always cropping up. 
No publishing season goes by without the announcement of 
books for the young bearing such titles as " The Baseball 

Boys of " or " The Third Strike." And the poets who 

have turned verses on the game are legion. No anthology of 
American verse, for example, would be deemed complete 
which omitted " Casey at the Bat " or " The Darktown Nine." 
And the newspaper space devoted to the game is beyond 
estimation. The cleverest cartoonists and the " snappiest " 
writers are always reserved for the big matches, while the 
" cub reporter " who is anxious to " make good " hails a 
baseball assignment as the opportunity of a lifetime. 

There is a quahty in the game which accounts for its 

phenomenal popularity. In the main the American likes 

excitement in his relaxation. He has a 

Why Baseball preference for what has been happily called 
IS Popular. 7, . . ,, , , . . _, ^^ "^ 

vicarious athleticism. The game is 

speedy, for the average time of a league contest is about two 

hours ; and it is full of thrills from the first pitch to the last 

base. There is also " money in it." That is, for the players 

and the club owners. The championship games of 1913 

netted gate-receipts to the value of $325,980, one game alone 

bringing in the useful sum of $75,676 (£15,128). Each 

member of the winning team received $3,243 (nearly £650) 

as his share for the five championship matches alone. Such 

is the universal popularity of the game, too, that it is not 

uncommon for the President to toss the first ball at the opening 

match of the season. The ball-grounds are naturally among 

the finest sport arenas of the world, the noble concrete Stadium 

of Harvard not excelling many of the great city grounds. 



CHAPTER XIV 

DAYS AND SEASONS 

Nearly five years ago Life published a suggestive cartoon 
with the title of " A Few More AppHcants for Legal HoMdays." 
On the left of the picture there was a kind of box-office 
over which was inscribed the admonition, " State Your Claims 
as Briefly as Possible/' and a peep through the window dis- 
closed a venerable clerk busily engaged in recording the 
applications of a long train of candidates. First in the 
procession stood Benjamin Frankhn, followed by Lief Erick- 
son, Horace Greeley, Sir Walter Raleigh, Artemus Ward, and 
a great host of other famous Americans who are not yet 
honoured in the national holiday calendar. The artist, 
indeed, suggested that the fine of appHcants was interminable, 
for in the top corner of his picture a protruding foot indicated 
that in addition to the sixty who had formed up in the march 
on the box-office there were countless more to follow. 

That cartoon was at once a satire and a prophecy. Taking 

all the States together, there are already more than forty 

legal hohdays in the Union, apart from those 

Hoiidayl'irt^ additional off days which are included on the 
vacation list every fourth year. As many of 
the heroes in the Life cartoon are destined to have their 
" day " before the country is many years older, it would 
seem that a hundred legal holidays annually are not beyond 
possibihty. Indeed, Americans are so prone to hero-worship 
that the day may come when the calendar is full to overflowing. 
They will not all be national hohdays, for American patriotism 
is inclined to be local ; but when every State celebrates its 
famous sons it should be possible for the indolent, by the 
simple process of travelling from State to State, to spend the 
entire year in an orgy of commemoration. 

248 



Days and Seasons 249 

Yet, notwithstanding the already formidable list of off- 
days, America has no national holiday. In other words, 

Congress has no power to prescribe when the 
%oHda"^^ lieges shall take their ease. All decisions 

on such matters come within the category 
of State rights, a distinction between the central and sub- 
ordinate governments which accounts for the lack of uni- 
formity in holiday arrangements. This explains the prodi- 
gious list of legal holidays, for many of them are restricted to 
a hmited number of States. For example, two of the States 
still refrain from a formal celebration of New Year's Day ; 
the anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans is restricted to 
Louisiana ; only eight States honour Lee's birthday ; Georgia 
Day is confined to the State of that name ; Lincoln's birthday 
is a legal hoHday in less than half the States ; Patriots' Day 
is a Maine and Massachusetts festival ; and numerous other 
examples of purely local celebrations could be cited. This 
localisation of legal holidays interferes to some extent with 
interstate commerce, but not so seriously as it would in a 
smaller country. 

That Maine and Massachusetts still hold aloof from the 
New Year orgies by which that day is celebrated in most of 

the other States is probably due to the per- 

H^rh^^f^^ sistence of the Puritan tradition. In New 

Day. York it is the most riotous restaurant festival 

of the whole year. At the " swell " resorts 
of the Lobster Palace region the tables are booked months 
ahead, and dining and wining are protracted to unconscionable 
hours. Wherever, in other cities, the Scottish element is 
predominant the revelry partakes of the wild scenes associated 
with the Glasgow Tron, though most Americans have sufficient 
paganism in their nature not to require such an example. 
Not even the Puritan States boycott Christmas Day, which 
is now a legal holiday all over the Union. This universal 
celebration has developed within the memory of Americans 
still living, for a New England native can remember when the 



250 America of the Americans 

great Christian festival passed without notice, when no hoHday 
was proclaimed or presents exchanged. To-day, however, 
the approach of Christmas is heralded by prodigious displays 
of presents in all the stores, by an unHmited supply of ever- 
green wreaths and fancy decorations, and by as copious a 
supply of appropriate periodical literature as will be found in 
any country. With one exception, it is the greatest home 
reunion festival, and even the boarding-houses indulge for 
once in a reckless menu. This growth in the celebration of 
Christmas has had a potent effect upon the book trade of the 
Union, for every publisher makes a specialty of the " hohday 
books " which at that season are in great demand as presents. 
A shrewd American beheves that the observance of Christmas 
among his countrymen has been fostered by its appeal to the 
aesthetic rather than to the religious sense of the people. 

If New England has stubbornly refused to follow the 

example of the rest of the Union in the matter of New Year's 

Day, the other States have not retaliated by 

"^^^^^^iving boycotting the pecuharly New England 
festival of Thanksgiving Day. The origin of 
that celebration is somewhat compHcated, owing to the 
overlapping of Pilgrim and Puritan history. According to 
the Puritan theory, the festival dates back to those early days 
when a dearth of provisions in the Bay colony prompted the 
authorities to proclaim a solemn fast, which, however, owing 
to the sudden arrival of a well-laden ship, was turned to a 
thanksgiving at the last moment. On the other hand, the 
Pilgrim theory reminds us that the Plymouth settlers held a 
thanksgiving during the first year of their settlement, urged 
thereto by the abundance of their harvest and the plentifulness 
of " wild turkeys." On the whole, and especially as the 
Pilgrims held their thanksgiving in November, the now 
national festival of America may be most safely attributed to 
the grateful celebration of 1621. But it was many years 
ere the celebration was observed in all the States, only twenty- 
five participating in the commemoration of 1858. Since 



Days and Seasons 251 

Lincoln, however, proclaimed the day as a legal holiday in 
1864, it has become customary for every President to follow 
his example, which, in turn, is imitated by all the State 
governors. Consequently Thanksgiving Day is now univer- 
sally observed, usually on the last Thursday in November, 
and although the religious nature of its origin is still preserved 
by the church services which are held in New England, the 
festival has become the chief family reunion hoHday for the 
whole country. Present-giving is not a pronounced feature 
of the occasion ; on the other hand. Thanksgiving dinner 
should see the family circle unbroken around a table of which 
the inevitable centrepiece is a turkey and cranberry sauce. 
The illustrated periodicals are wont to whet the modern 
American's appetite and sense of security by presenting him 
with dramatic pictures of colonial Thanksgiving repasts, in 
which the most prominent incidents are the paucity of the 
meal and the imminence of an attack of wild Indians. In 
view of the contemporary prosperity of the country. Thanks- 
giving Day is perhaps the most reasonable of all American 
celebrations. 

But such a statement must not be interpreted as a reflection 
on the rationahty of the " Glorious Fourth." Not many 
nations can point to a definite date as their 
^^Fourth. -"""' birthday, and if the Declaration of Independ- 
ence was actually adopted on the 2nd of 
July and not finally voted until the 9th of that month, while 
the actual signing was protracted over a long period, inasmuch 
as the document was published to the outer world on the 4th 
of July, there is ample justification for that day being selected 
as the anniversary of the severance of the thirteen colonies 
from the mother-land. It might be thought that such a 
celebration would come within the scope of Federal legislation, 
yet Congress has not even yet made it the occasion of a law. 

No legislation is needed, however, to impel the American 
to celebrate the Fourth of July. Until quite recently, indeed, 
his celebration has erred on the side of fatal excess. So fatal, 



252 America of the Americans 

as a matter of fact, that it is probably correct to affirm that 

the United States has lost more lives in celebrating than in 

achieving independence. The excuse for New York's first 

riotous commemoration is that it took place at a time of war ; 

hence the bonfires, the torchhght processions, and the melting 

down of George Ill's statue into bullets, were excusable. 

But it would be difficult to extenuate the rowdyism, the 

vulgarity, and the reckless disregard of property and life 

which have come to be associated with the " Glorious Fourth." 

To forget an Independence Day celebration is impossible. 

It resounds in the memory with an intolerable din. No 

recollection of a battlefield is comparable with 

The Dm of j^g unendiner racket. Every implement of 

Independence ^ j- , • • j "i. ^^f j- i, i- i 

Day. fiendish noise ever conceived by the diabolical 

ingenuity of man was pressed into the service 
of deafening patriotism — the most raucous horns and trum- 
pets, the most resonant drums, the most ear-piercing rattles, 
the most explosive revolvers, the most stunning cannon- 
crackers. Nor were twenty-four hours deemed sufficient for 
the exercise of those instruments of torture. The pande- 
monium always began " the night before," which, to peaceful 
Americans, became as great a horror as the Fourth itself. 
No district of a city was immune from the uproar. The 
quiet by-streets as well as the chief highways of traffic, retired 
avenues as well as the public squares, were alike invaded by 
the obstreperous patriots. Nor was a thought ever given 
to the claims of the tired or the sick in home or hospital ; 
sleep was impossible for the weary and quietude denied the 
dying. From " the night before " and on all through the 
Fourth and over into the early hours of the following day that 
distracting hullabaloo never ceased. 

That disgraceful hcence was an extreme apphcation of the 
doctrine of democracy. As a candid pohce commissioner 
once expressed it, " That by midnight on any 3rd of July half 
a million persons are in bed in Boston and a hundred thousand 
out of doors ; that although the half milhon include all the 



Days and Seasons 253 

babies, all the sick, all the aged, all the infirm and most of the 
orderly men and women for whose protection laws are made, 
and the hundred thousand are robust pleasure-seekers, yet 
it is a popular delusion that the hundred thousand are ' the 
people,' and that enjoyment to excess by this minority, 
unlawful excess often, is of greater moment than the rights 
of the majority which the laws guarantee." 

And then there was the harvest. Not merely in devastating 

fires, which in one year destroyed property to the value of 

$535,435, but in the physical ruin of thousands 

theT Fourth ^^^ *^^ deaths of hundreds. The newspapers 
of the 5th of July were besprinkled with such 
headhnes as " 154 Victims of Independence Day Explosives," 
" Boy Shoots and Kills his Brother," " Victims of Pistol 
Shooters," " Girl is Fatally Injured by Bomb," " Five Boys 
Blown to Fragments by Dynamite," etc., etc. No one was 
safe anywhere. An aged workman while crossing a street 
would suddenly fall with a bullet through his head, a three- 
year-old girl would have her skull fractured while sitting on her 
father's knee at an open window, or a labourer while resting 
in a public park would fall a victim to some unknown patriot 
with a revolver. In 1903 nearly 4,000 persons were seriously 
injured, while the dead numbered 176 more than the total 
loss of the army and navy in the war with Spain. So far as 
statistics go, the totals of that year were a " record," for in 
addition to the nearly 4,000 injured there were 466 slain 
outright ! Since that year the Journal of the American 
Medical Association has kept a chronicle of the casualties of the 
" Glorious Fourth," which shows that in ten years the victims 
have numbered 36,831, of whom 1,326 have been killed. 
Among the injured hundreds have been afflicted with bhnd- 
ness, other hundreds have lost arms or legs or hands, while 
the indirect results of this barbarous patriotism through the 
death or maiming of breadwinners are beyond estimation. 

Such a scandal eventually prompted action on the part 
of more peaceful Americans. The press awoke to the necessity 



254 America of the Americans 

of a vigorous campaign, which in turn reacted upon the 
municipal governments, wdth the result that in 1913 the 
injured numbered only 1,131 and the fatalities 32. It seems, 
then, as though the agitation for a " sane Fourth " is approach- 
ing success, and that in the near future the nation's birthday 
will be rationally celebrated by orations, harmless processions, 
music and games, and official firework displays. 

But not even in the palmy days of the " Glorious Fourth " 

orgies was that blood-stained festival of patriotism sufficient 

to placate the national fervour of New 

^Prtrfjtfsm""^ England. True to the old theory that no 
quarrels are so bitter as those of the family 
circle, that district, with its closer affiliations with the " Old 
Home " than any other region of the Union, out-did all 
America in patriotic celebrations. The revelry was begun 
every 17th of March by the commemoration of Evacuation 
Day, was resumed on the 19th of April under the guise of 
Patriots' Day, and was continued on the 17th of June for the 
purpose of perpetuating the Battle of Bunker Hill. Waiving 
the unique fact that Bunker Hill Day is probably the only 
example of a defeat being utilised for rejoicing, it is really 
surprising that the New Englanders did not also add to their 
calendar other festivals in celebration of the " Boston 
Massacre " and the " Boston Tea-Party." Even in New 
England, however, a saner spirit is in the ascendancy, for of 
late there has been a movement in favour of deleting both 
Evacuation Day and Bunker Hill Day from the patriotic 
calendar. This sentiment has been admirably expressed by 
Edwin D. Mead, who, while approving of Patriot's Day 
and the Fourth, adds " The devotion of two more days in our 
precious year to keeping ourselves hot about crazy old George 
ni and British redcoats, is not only a disproportionate 
emphasis which is ridiculous, but the celebrations, which now 
in their mere character have largely degenerated into \Tilgarity 
and noise, have become positively obnoxious and a hindrance 
to right feeling." Such celebrations were fostered by the 



Days and Seasons 255 

inflammatory text -books which used to be used in all schools, 
but now that those elementary annuals of history are being 
written in a more impartial spirit it is probable that New 
England will revise her patriotic festivals at no distant 
date. 

If in years gone by Americans have shown themselves 
destitute of a sense of the relative importance of national 

history, that defect is being rapidly remedied. 

Mother's Day Perhaps Mother's Day, with its purpose of 

Arbor^Day. showing "remembrance of the Mother and 

the Father to whom grateful affection is 
due," is on the one hand a confession of the weakness of family 
affection, and on the other a dangerous incentive to centre 
such remembrance in one instead of all the days of the year ; 
but in view of economic conditions produced through the 
wastage of the forests the institution of Arbor Day is wholly 
praiseworthy. The object of that celebration, which is being 
increasingly recognised by the State governments, was well 
expounded by the letter addressed to the school children of the 
country by President Roosevelt. " Arbor Day," he wrote, 
" which means simply ' Tree Day,' is now observed in every 
State of our Union — and mainly in the schools. At various 
times from January to December, but chiefly in this month 
of April, you give a day or part of a day to special exercises, 
and perhaps to actual tree planting, in recognition of the 
importance of trees to us as a nation, and of what they yield 
in adornment, comfort, and useful products to the com- 
munities in which you hve. It is well that you should cele- 
brate your Arbor Day thoughtfully, for within your lifetime 
the nation's need of trees will become serious. We of an older 
generation can get along with what we have, though with 
growing hardship ; but in your full manhood and womanhood 
you will want what nature once so bountifully supplied and 
man so thoughtlessly destroyed ; and because of that want 
you will reproach us, not for what we have used, but for what 
we have wasted. ... A people without children would face 



256 America of the Americans 

a hopeless future ; a country without trees is almost as 
hopeless ; forests which are so used that they cannot renew 
themselves will soon vanish, and with them all their benefits. 
A true forest is not merely a storehouse full of wood, but, as it 
were, a factory of wood, and at the same time a reservoir of 
water. When you help to preserve our forests or to plant 
new ones, you are acting the part of good citizens. The value 
of forestry deserves, therefore, to be taught in the schools, 
which aim to make good citizens of you. If your Arbor Day 
exercises help you to realise what benefits each one of you 
receives from the forests, and how by your assistance these 
benefits may continue, they will serve a good end." The 
most notable characteristic of this letter and the movement it 
endorses is that it manifests an altruistic spirit which has been 
sadly lacking in American affairs, but is now, happily, imbuing 
the leaders of the nation. For all its devotion to practical 
results, to hard work and great wealth, the American tem- 
perament has ever been distinguished for a strain of ideahsm, 
which is now taking a concrete form in many ways. 

While climatic conditions make it inevitable that Arbor 
Day shall be a movable festival, nothing save the unfortunate 
want of uniformity in commemoration dates 
Decoration stands in the way of a simultaneous celebra- 
tion of Decoration or Memorial Day. That 
is the All Saints festival of America. Its origin was, of course, 
due to the Civil War, for even while that terrible conflict 
was still raging it became a custom in the Southern States 
for the sorrowing relatives of the fallen soldiers to adorn their 
heroes' graves with flags and flowers. In 1868 the com- 
mander-in-chief of the army issued an order appointing 30th 
May for the general decoration of the graves of those who had 
given their lives for their country, coupled with a hope that 
the ceremony might be " kept up from year to year." That 
hope has now been realised, for although the various States 
observe Decoration Day on four different dates — ranging from 
26th April to 30th May — there is perfect unanimity in the 



Days and Seasons 257 

manner and spirit of its celebration. All graves are honoured 
alike : 

From the silence of sorrowful hours 

The desolate mourners go, 
Lo\dngly laden with flowers 

Alike for the friend and the foe : 
Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the judgment-day ; 
Under the roses, the Blue, 
Under the lilies, the Gray. 

As in the case of Mother's Day, there is a danger lest this 
formal duty of Decoration Day shall restrict to one day 
in the year a memory which ought to persist through all the 
months of the calendar. That some such result has accrued 
would appear to be indicated by the neglected condition of 
many American cemeteries. On the other hand, however, 
some States, and notably Massachusetts, have provided a 
corrective against forgetfulness. In the State House at 
Boston there is a noble Memorial Hall, where are the battle 
flags carried by the Massachusetts Volunteers, and it is 
pleasant to notice that all visitors to that hall pay it due 
reverence by uncovering their heads. 

In addition to the more than forty public holidays which 
may be enjoyed here and there throughout the Union, it must 

not be forgotten that many other days are 
^H^?d ^^^ deleted from the working calendar by certain 

classes of the community, for in any great 
city there are thousands of the population who on one excuse 
or another contrive to secure more off-days than are authorised 
by the State. America is the land of buttonhole badges, and 
those badges are the outward and visible sign of membership 
in one or other of the countless societies and fraternal organ- 
isations by which the children of Uncle Sam endeavour to 
compensate their lack of tradition. As a penetrating but 
sympathetic critic has remarked, " The American hves 
morally in the vagueness of space ; he is, as it were, suspended 
in the air, he has no fixed groove. The levelled society, 
17— (2393A) 12 pp. 



258 America of the Americans 

without traditions, without a past, in which he lives, does not 
provide him with one. The only traditional social groove 
which did exist, and which was supplied by the churches, has 
been almost worn down by the incessant action of material 
civihsation and the advance of knowledge. To construct, or 
wait for the construction of, new, permanent grooves, the 
American has neither the time nor the inclination. Obeying 
the national genius, he creates mechanical ones, in the form of 
associations, as numerous and varied as they are superficial, 
but all revealing the uneasiness of the American mind assailed 
by a sort of fear of solitude and, again, by the desire felt by 
the individual to give himself a special status in the midst of 
the community at large." 

Perhaps something of the tenuity of the emotional life of 
America may be laid to the charge of the fathers of the 

RepubHc. " No title of nobihty shall be 

l°Substftute S^^^^^^ ^y t^^ United States," declared the 

for Titles. framers of the Constitution. " And no 

person holding any office of profit or trust 
under them," they added, " shall, without the consent of the 
Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title 
of any kind from any king, prince, or foreign state." This 
helps to explain why so many American women, greatly to the 
disgust of those parents who are immune from the temptation, 
are wilhng enough to wed the titles which the Constitution 
debars. But it also explains why Congressmen are so proud 
of being " Honourables," and, above all, why most Americans 
are so eager for membership in those societies which mark 
them out from their fellows. Such are such organisations as 
the " Sons of the Revolution," which is confined to male 
descendants of those who fought in the Revolution, the 
" Descendants of the Signers," who must prove their hneal 
connection with the men who signed the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, the " Daughters of the Revolution," the " Colonial 
Dames of America," the " General Society of Mayflower 
Descendsints," and countless other associations which in 



Days and Seasons 259 

every case are so constituted as to establish caste divisions 
as rigid as the grades of the peerage. Nor are these the 
only pathetic illustrations of American attempts to create 
an artificial emotional tradition ; in addition there are 
innumerable fraternity societies with high-sounding names, 
the " Tribe of Ben Hur," the " United Ancient Order 
of Druids," the " Knights of Columbus," etc., etc., which, 
apart altogether from their insurance benefits, are popular 
because they tend to supply that colour and ceremony 
so lacking in American life. All these associations, with 
their " commanderies " and " chapters " and " temples," 
have their annual processions and conventions which are, 
of course, made the excuse for extra-legal holidays without 
number. Those processions and conventions, however, have 
their value in providing effects which help to quicken the 
imaginative life of the country. 

If the chapters on the Drama and Play-time, and the fore- 
going enumeration of public and other holidays, are not 

sufficient proof that the American is not 
for^V^^^tr ns who% ^ slave to business and dollar-hunting, 

convincing evidence to that effect is afforded 
by the national passion for vacations. Natives candidly 
admit that in June the regular structure of American life is 
broken up. " Vacation has become a fetish," is the exclama- 
tion of one writer. A trip to Europe is, of course, the chief 
ambition of most Americans, despite the exhortations of 
patriots to " See America first," but as there are so many 
milHons for the holiday fever to attack, the native resorts 
do not lack patronage. Of course, the day excursionists 
contemptuously termed " Boiled-eggers " by hotel managers, 
because they carry their own food with them, are beyond 
count ; but the proportion of famihes who insist upon a 
full-bodied and protracted summer vacation every year is 
far larger than in any other country. Everybody goes some- 
where. " People from the mountains go to the seashore, 
and vice versa. Eastern people rush to the West. Western 



260 America of the Americans 

people come back Eastward, Southerners come North. It 
is a national hegira, a flux of population and a craze for 
change." A mere catalogue of the resorts most in favour 
would swell to the proportions of a book, especially if an 
attempt were made to tabulate the attractions as they are 
set forth by their various champions, but the characteristics 
of the most popular were tersely described by an unconven- 
tional Western girl in the following epitome : " Ashbury 
Park, too religious ; Long Branch, too stuffy ; Southampton, 
too respectable ; Lennox, too scattered, too many large 
country seats ; Bar Harbour, too slow, too many Phila- 
delphians ; Newport, too snobby ; Narragansett Pier, too 
near Newport, and not ' it ' ; Atlantic City, ' it,' something 
doing all the time, always on the jump." 

Vacation " folders," in other words, the Uterature of the 
hoHday resort, and the alluring advertisements of the 
American railroads, are as native and unique a product as 
peanuts. " Spend this summer where living is a joy," is the 
exordium of the Rock Island press agent. " Minds and bodies 
corroded with the bartering moil, the dust and grime of the 
city, shed cares and worries Hke leaves. Faded cheeks find 
crimson. JangHng nerves find harmony. Days are full of 
vibrant Hving and nights bring perfect rest." All this is 
penned in the interests of Colorado, but every other region 
has its equally eloquent advocate. And when winter comes 
the claims of Florida and California are exploited with the 
same impassioned rhetoric. 

But wherever Americans spend their hohdays, whether in 

the exclusive radius of Newport or amid the heterogeneous 

community at Atlantic City, whether among 

"^^'^RoSer^^^" the recesses of the mountains or along the 
Maine coast, the vacation hotel has one 
feature of immutable stability. There is certain to be a piazza, 
and even more certainly will that piazza have an abnormal 
proportion of rocking-chairs. The " rocker," indeed, is the 
permanent element of all American hohdays. From 



Days and Seasons 261 

post-breakfast-time to the luncheon hour, from after luncheon 
to dinner-time, from after dinner till bed-time, the " rockers " 
never cease. To and fro, to and fro, to and fro, heedless of 
the eternal creaking and squeaking and chafing, the " rocker " 
falsifies the denial of perpetual motion. Those not to the 
native manner born are Hkely to grow distracted by the 
everlasting fidgeting of the piazza " rocker," yet in its 
restlessness, its never-ceasing agitation, its dawn to sunset 
swaying back and forth, it is perhaps an apt symbol of the 
American temperament. Indeed, if the United States should 
ever wish to change its national emblem it might consider 
the appropriateness of a dollar bill vert with a " rocker " Or. 



17A— (2393A) 



INDEX 



Adams, John, 14 

, Maude, 123 

Addams, Jane, 215, 228 

Agriculture : America a rural 
nation, 181, 182 ; statistics of 
farm produce, 182 ; Indian 
corn, 183, 184 ; cotton grow- 
ing, 184, 185 ; cotton by- 
products, 185, 186 ; other farm 
products, 186 

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 71 

Alexander, John W., 149, 150 

America : the lure of, 217, 218; 
the reverse of its prosperity, 
218; not an Arcadia, 219 

Ames, Winthrop, 116 

Argonaut, the, 66 

Atherton, Mrs., 75 

Atlantic Monthly, the, 89 

Babbitt, Irving, 51, 53 
Barber's shop, an American, 177 
Bartholdi, Auguste, 217 
Baseball, 245, 246, 247 
Beard, Professor Charles A., 28 
Belasco, David, 104, 106, 113-115, 

120, 198 
Bennett, James Gordon, 60 
Bisland, Elizabeth, 95 
Book News Monthly, the, 179 
Boot-cleaning, the question of, 

177, 178 
Borglam, Gutzon, 155 
Boston : likeness to London, 204 ; 
old part, 205 ; as a literary 
centre, 205 ; Public Library, 
206; City Club, 206, 207; 
" Back Bay sets," 207 
Boston Transcript, the, 57, 58, 61 
Bryan, William J., 12, 20, 56 
Burbank, Luther, 170 
Burroughs, John, 95, 98 
Butler, President, 36 



Cabinet, the, 18, 19 
Cable, George W., 80, 81 
Campaign biographies, 12 
Campaign funds for Presidential 

election, 11 
Carnegie, Andrew, 169 
Carrel, Dr. Alexis, 170 
Carson, Mrs. Norma Bright, 179 
Century, the, 67 
Chambers, Robert W., 83, 84 
Channing, William Ellery, 69 
Chautauqua Institution, 40 
Chicago : " the Windy City," 
214 ; friendhness of, 214 ; cor- 
ruption in, 215 ; good govern- 
ment movement in, 215 
Chicago stockyards, 187, 188 
" Chinese Business," 12 
" Chronicle, A Modern," 83 
Churchill, Winston, 82, 83 
Cities : uniformity of, 194 ; sub- 
jective distinctions, 195 
Civil Service, the, 16, 17 
Clarke, Thomas B., 139, 140 
Clay, Henry, 3 

Cleveland, President, 2, 3, 12, 16 
Collier's Weekly, 57 
Commoner, Lincoln, 56 
Congress : bicameral, 20 ; quali- 
fication of members, 21 ; re- 
presentation in, 21, 22 ; powers 
of the Senate, 23 ; election of 
Senators, 23 ; salaries of con- 
gressmen, 24 ; how legislation 
is introduced, 24 ; standing 
committees, 25 
" Coniston," 83 
Continent, the, 65 
Corcoran, William W., 142 
Corning, Dr. Leonard, 172 
Correspondence schools, 40 
Cortissoz, Royal, 61 
Couricy-Journal, Louisville, 56 



263 



264 



Index 



Cricket, 240, 241 
" Crisis, The," 83 
" Crossing, The," 83 

Daly, Arnold, 116 
Dargan, Ohve Tilford, 112 
Davies, Arthur B., 148 
Day, Chancellor, 227 
Dearth, Henry G., 148 
Deland, Margaret, 80 
Democrats and Republicans, 26, 
Dial, the, 65 [28 

Dickens, Charles, 14, 196, 200 
Divorce and " hustling," 176 
Doubleday, Abner, 245 
Drew, John, 119, 120 
Dual government of America, 27 

" Easiest Way. The," 108, 109 

Edgett, Edwin F., 58 

Edison, Thomas Alva, 160, 162, 
163. 164, 165 

Education : American passion 
for, 40 ; connection of with 
immigration, 41 ; early interest 
in, 41, 42 ; no uniform ele- 
mentary, 42 ; Bureau of, 42 ; 
the common schools, 43 ; State 
interest in, 43, 44 ; compulsory 
attendance, 44 ; the rural 
school, 44, 45, 46 ; private 
schools, 47 ; secondar}^ schools, 
47, 48 ; universities, 48 ; voca- 
tional, 49, 50 ; elective system, 
50 ; humanistic, 53 

Electoral College, the, 13 

EUot, Ex-President, 36, 50 

Eggleston, Edward, 82 

Emerson, Ralph W., 69 

Farnol, Jeffrey, 87 
Farrar, Geraldine, 135, 136 
Fine Arts : influence of wealth, 
138; picture dealers, 138, 139; 
foreign portrait painters, 140 ; 
influence of expositions, 141 ; 
National Academy of Design, 
141 ; permanent art galleries, 
142, 143 ; is there a native 



Fine Arts (contd.) — 

school of painting ? 143, 144, 
150 ; failure to " express 
America," 145 ; international 
influence, 146, 151 ; Whistler's 
influence, 146 ; artistic rebel- 
lions, 147 ; Cubism, 147, 148 ; 
national themes neglected, 149 ; 
sculpture, 152 ; architecture, 
156 

Fisher, Sydney G., 93 

Fiske, Minnie Maddern, 122, 123 

Fitch, Clyde, 102 

Flexner, Dr. Simon, 170, 171 

Franklin, Benjamin, 138 

Fraternities, 50, 52 

Freeman, Mrs., 79, 80 

French, Daniel C, 154, 155 

" From Log Cabin to White 
House," 2 

Fruit-growing, 189, 190 

" Fruit of the Tree, The," 78 

Frye, Prosser Hall, 97 

Garfield, President, 2, 16 

Gay, Walter, 146 

" Gerrymandering," 22 

" Getting pork," 24 

Gilchrist, Edward, 91 

" Girl of the Golden West, The," 

107 
Godkin, Edwin L., 56 
Goldsmith, Wallace, 65 
Golf, 242, 243 

" Great Divide, The," 107, 108 ■ 
Greeley, Horace, 56 
Greenslet, Ferris, 96 

Habit, a distressing national, 196 
Hale, George E., 167 

, Philip, 132, 133, 137 

, Philip LesUe, 144, 145 

Hammerstein, Oscar, 126, 127, 

128 
Hardy, Thomas, 84 
Harper's Magazine, 67, 75, 84 • 

Weekly, 65 

Harrison, General, 6, 7 
Harvard University, 42. 49, 50. 53 



Index 



265 



Harvey, Colonel George, 65 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 16, 72 
" Hazard of New Fortunes, A," 74 
Hearst. William R., 58, 59 
" Heart's Highway, The," 79 
Held, Anna, 117 
Herald, the, 59, 60 
Herrick, Robert, 85 
Holidays : forty legal, 248 ; no 
national, 249 ; New Year and 
Christmas Day. 249, 250 ; 
Thanksgiving, 250, 251 ; the 
"glorious Fourth," 251-254; 
Bunker Hill day, 254 ; Arbor 
day, 255, 256 ; Decoration day, 
256 ; extra-legal, 257 ; passion 
for vacations, 259, 260 
Holman, Alfred. 66 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 173 
" Hoosier Schoolmaster. The," 82 
Hough, Emerson, 82 
House of Governors, 34 
" House of Mirth. The," 78, 156 
Howells, William Dean, 70, 72-77, 

81, 87, 94, 95, 100 
Hutchinson. A. S. M., 87 

Independent, the, 65 

" In the Quarter." 83 

Invention : national passion for, 
160 ; Patent Office statistics, 
160. 161 ; Patent lawyers, 161 ; 
wealth the incentive to, 16 1,1 62 ; 
some typical, 162. 163 ; the 
cinematograph. 163, 164 ; 
American attitude to the in- 
ventor, 165. 166 ; astronomical 
inventions, 166 

Jackson. A. V. Williams, 95 

. President, 16, 19 

James, William, 97 
Jefferson, Thomas, 219, 221 
Johnson, Owen, 85, 86 

, Richard M., 9 

" John Ward, Preacher," 80 
Jones, Henry Arthur. 101 
Journahsm, School of, 54, 55 
" Jungle. The." 86. 187 



Kauffman. Reginald. 85 

Keck, Charles. 155 

" Ketons. The," 74. 75 

" King Alfred's Jewel." 89. 90 

Klein, Charles, 102 

" Kreutzer Sonata, The," 111 

Labour, iVmerican Federation of, 
222-225 

" Lady of Aroostook, The." 74 

" Lady of the Decoration, The." 
86 

Lambs' Club. 198 

Lamson. Gardner. 130 

Lawn-tennis, 244, 245 

Leslie's Weekly, 57 

Libertv, statue of, 217, 218 

Life, 61, 66. 67. 248 

Lincoln, Abraham, 2, 17, 19. 165 

Lindsay. Judge B., 230 

Literary Digest, the, 66 

Literature : statistics of, 69, 70 ; 
is there an American ? 71 ; 
" the great American novel," 
71, 72 ; the " best sellers," 76, 
77 ; publishing conditions. 77 ; 
the Indiana school, 81 , 82 ; the 
sex novel, 84, 85 ; transient 
" best sellers," 86 ; return to 
romanticism, 87 ; poetry, 87- 
93 ; history, 93, 94 ; travel 
books, 94, 95 ; biography, 95 
96 ; literary criticism, 96, 97 
religion and philosophy, 97 
nature essays. 98 

Longman, Beatrice, 156 

Lowell, J. R., 1, 217 

, Percival, 168 

Lukeman, Augustus. 155 

Luks. George, 148 

Lumbering, 190, 191 

MacDowell, Edward A., 136 

Mackaye, Percy, 112 

Major, Charles, 82 

" Man of the Hour, The," 111 

Mantell, Robert B.. 120 

Marlowe, Julia, 117, 118 

Marshall Field store, 179. 180, 181 



266 



Index 



McCarthy, Denis A., 90 
McCutcheon. G. B., 82 
, J. T., 65 

McKinley, President, 59 

Mead, Edwin D., 254 

Meat packing, 187 

Meltzer, Dr. S. J., 172 

Metal mining, 191 

" Mid-term danger," 2 

Mitchell, Langdon, 103, 109, HI 

" Modern Instance, A," 74 

Moody, William Vaughn, 104, 107 

More, Paul Elmer, 65, 96 

Moore, George, 84 

Morton, T. G., 172 

" Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage 
Patch," 110 

Miiller, Margarethe, 96 

Municipal government : ineffi- 
ciency of, 35 ; mayor, 35 ; 
" boss " control, 36 ; costliness 
of, 36 ; police scandals, 36, 37 ; 
" Hibernian domination " of, 
37, 38; reform of, 38; com- 
mission experiments in, 38, 39 

Music : finances of, 126 ; Man- 
hattan versus Metropolitan 
Opera Houses, 127, 128, 129 ; 
grand opera a social fad, 128, 
129 ; grand opera in English, 
130, 131 ; New York musical 
societies, 131 ; provincial opera, 

132 ; Boston Symphony, 132, 

133 ; grand opera in Boston, 
133, 134 ; in Chicago, 133, 134 ; 
native singers, 135, 136 ; native 
composers, 136 ; national 
music, 137 

Muther, Richard. 143 

National committee, 10, 11 

convention, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 

10 

Nation, the, 65 

Negro : problem of, 231 ; dis- 
franchised, 232 ; no social 
equality for, 233, 234 ; statis- 
tics of, 234 ; " Jim Crow " 
laws, 235. 236 



Neihardt, J. G., 92 

New Orleans : Changing aspect 
of, 209 ; individuality of, 210 

Newspapers : statistics of, 55 ; 
staffs, how recruited, 55, 56 ; 
famous editors, 56 ; no national 
circulation, 56, 57 ; national 
reputation of, 57, 58 ; the yel- 
low journal, 58, 59 ; leading 
dailies, 59 ; Sunday editions, 
61, 62, 63 ; organisation of, 63 ; 
the " story " feature of, 64 ; 
illustrations of, 64, 65 ; leading 
weeklies, 65, 66, 67 

New York : waterside district, 
195 ; hotels of, 196 ; hospital- 
ity of, 197; the clubs of, 197, 
198. 199 ; cosmopohtan popu- 
lation, 199 ; slums of, 199, 200 ; 
the Bowery, 200. 201 ; Broad- 
way, 201 ; Tenderloin restaur- 
ants, 201, 202 ; Fifth Avenue, 
203, 204 ; travelling facilities 
in, 204 

Neiv York Evening Post, the, 57. 
58. 59. 61 

" New York Idea, The," 109, 110 

New York Times, the, 57, 59, 61 

Nicholson, Meredith, 82 

Norton, Charles Eliot, 71 

OcHS, Adolph S., 56, 61 
" Old Creole Davs," 81 
Orcutt, William Dana, 94 
Otis, General Harrison Grey, 56 

Page. Thomas Nelson, 94 

Palmer, George H., 96 

Parker, Theodore, 2 

Peanut industry, 188, 189 

Pearce, Charles S., 146 

Philadelphia ; supposed somno- 
. lence of, 208 ; " the Citv of 
. Brotherly Love," 208 ; " graft " 

• in, 208 ; " the City of Homes," 

• 208, 209 ; historical associa- 
■ tions of, 209 

Phillips, David Graham, 85 
Pickering, Edward C, 166 



Index 



267 



Pickering, William H., 167 

Pittsburg : " Hell with the Hd 
off," 213 ; " the Smoky City." 
214 ; prevalence of dirt in, 214 ; 
its numerous millionaires, 214 

" Pivotal States," 12 

" Poems of Two Friends," 73 

Politicians, American opinion of, 
■ 25, 26 

Polk, James K., 5 

Polo. 243 

President of U.S.A. : as office- 
holder, 1 ; his election, 2 ; 
" minority Presidents," 2 ; no 
direct vote for, 2, 3 ; how 
nominated, 6, 7 ; inauguration 
of, 13 ; his official home, 14, 15 
his salary and allowances, 15 
control of patronage, 16, 17 
his powers, 17, 18; relations 
to the cabinet, 18, 19 ; ex- 
Presidents, 20 

Primary elections, 3, 4 

Progressive party, 26, 219, 220, 
228 

Prohibition, 27, 236, 237 

Pulitzer, Joseph, 54, 60 

Railroad travelling, 192, 193 
Reid, Whitelaw, 60 
Remington, Frederic, 150 
" Richard Carvel," 82 
Richardson, H. H., 156 
Rockefeller, John D., 170, 171 
Roosevelt, President, 5, 8, 16, 19, 

20, 25, 26, 32, 219, 221 
" Rose of the Rancho, The," 106 
Ross, General, 14 

, Professor E. A., 37 

" Round Up, The," 111 
Rous, Dr. Peyton, 171 
Rowing, 241, 242 
Royce, Josiah, 97 
Rural government, 39 

St. Gaudens, Augustus, 153, 154 
" Salamander, The," 85 
San Francisco : beauty of situa- 
tion, 215 ; likeness to Cape 



San Francisco {contd.) — 

Town, 215 ; rebuilding of, 216 ; 
most provincial city in America, 
. 216 

Sargent, John S., 143 
Saturday Evening Post, the, 57 
" Scarlet Letter, The," 72 
Science : astronomical discoveries, 
167, 168; observatories, 168, 
■ 169 ; Carnegie Institution, 169, 
170 ; Rockefeller Institution 
• 170, 171 ; bookworm investiga- 
tions, 171 ; anaesthetics, 172, 
173 ; applied entomology, 173, 
174 
Scribner's Magazine, 67 
Sedgwick, Henry D., 53 
" Shelburne Essays," 96 
Sherman Anti-trust Act, 227, 228 
i Shipping, 193 
1 Sinclair, Upton, 86, 187 
Sky-scrapers, 157, 158 
Smith, Sydney, 69, 70, 196 
Social problems ; as reflected in 
the Progressive programme, 
219, 220, 221 ; labour and 
capital, 221 ; grievances of 
industrial workers, 222 ; trade 
unionism, 223 ; the union label, 

224 ; boycott and strike. 224, 

225 ; strike-breaking, 225, 226 ; 
labour legislation, 226, 227 ; 
child labour, 228, 229 ; child 
crime, 230 ; the juvenile court, 
230,231; labour and the negro, 
231 ; the negro problem, 231-236 

Sothern, Edward H., 118, 119 

Sousa, John Philip, 137 

Springfield Republican, the, 57, 58 

Starr, Frances, 123, 124 

State government : forty-eight 
parliaments, 28 ; State rights 
and the parties, 28, 29 ; limita- 
tions of State rights, 29 ; con- 
stitution of State legislatures. 
29 ; payment of members. 30 ; 
enormous output of laws, 30, 
31 ; corrupt legislation, 32 ; 
distrust of State legislatures, 33 



268 



Index 



State governors : increase of 
powers of, 33 ; salaries of, 33 ; 
veto of, 34 

officials, 34, 35 

Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 71 
Stiles, Dr. Charles W., 171 
Stimson, Professor, F. J., 233 
Stores, American, 178. 179, 181 
" Strenuous life," The, 176, 177 
Sun, the, 60, 61 

Taft, Lorado, 155 

, President W. H., 5. 13, 20 

Tarkington, Booth, 82 

Tetrazzini, Mme., 127 

Theatres : unusually numerous, 
99 ; rewards of a successful 
play, 99 ; is there an American 
drama ? 100 ; opportunities of 
American dramatists, 101 ; con- 
ditions of a national drama, 
102-104; the New Theatre, 104, 
105 ; " girl and music " shows, 
112 ; poetic drama, 112 ; lead- 
ing managers, 115, 116; the 
press agent, 116, 117; "up- 
lift plays," 124 ; dramatic 
criticism, 124, 125 

Thomas, Augustus, 105 

" Tiles from a Porcelain Tower," 
91 

Times, Los Angeles, 56 

Town meeting of New England, 39 

Transportation, 191, 192 

Trask, Kate Nichols, 89, 90 

Tribune, the, 59, 60 

Tucker, W. J., 53 

Twain, Mark, 72 

" Uncle Tom's Cabin," 72, 101 



Universities and colleges, 48, 50, 
51, 52 

Van Dyke, Henry, 161, 165, 234 
Vedder, Henry C, 79 
Viereck, G. S., 92 

Wallace, Dr. Alfred R., 168 
Walter, Eugene, 108 
Wanamaker, John, 11, 179 

stores, 179 

Warfield, David, 120, 121 
Washington, Booker T., 235 

, D. C. : government of, 

38, 39 ; two seasons of, 210, 

211 ; history of, 211 ; " City 
of magnificent distances," 211, 

212 ; the Library of Congress, 
212 ; permanent population of, 
213 

, George, 14, 19, 21 

Watterson, Colonel Henry, 56 
Webster, Daniel, 3 
Weir, J. Alden, 149, 151 
Wells. Dr. Horace, 172 
Wharton, Edith, 77, 78, 79, 156 
White House, the, 14, 15 
Whittier, J. G., 45 
Wilkins, Mary E., 79 
Williams, Dr. T., 54 
Wilson, Bingham T., 90 

, President Woodrow, 14, 23, 

94, 98 
Wingfield, Major, 244 
Winter, William, 60, 94 
Woodberry, George E.. 87. 96 
World, the. 60. 61 

Yacht-racing. 244 

Zangwill, Israel, 41 



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